As everyone waits for a definitive conclusion to Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Scott Colom, county election officials also have to ensure they certify election results in the time period required by law.

Mississippi law mandates that each county’s respective election commission certify election results and transmit them to the secretary of state by 10 days after the election. This year’s deadline is Nov. 13, one week from today.

That follows another important deadline of Nov. 10. That is the last day for mailed-in absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day to arrive. It is also the last day for voters who did not bring their ID to the polls and had to vote affidavit to show their ID to their circuit clerk’s office for their vote to count.

Assistant Editor Kevin Edwards joins the MFP after spending more than six years in newspapers around Mississippi. A native of El Paso, Texas, Kevin moved to Cleveland in Bolivar County when he was 10 years old and has spent most of his life in the Mississippi Delta. He graduated from Delta State University with a bachelorā€™s degree in political science and a masterā€™s degree in liberal studies, as well as a masterā€™s in journalism from the University of Memphis. Following his education, he spent a year with the Birmingham, Alabama-based nonprofit Impact America in its Memphis office as an AmeriCorps member, providing free vision screenings to young children and free tax preparation for working families. His time as a reporter includes nearly four years with The Greenwood Commonwealth in Greenwood, as well as The Bolivar Commercial in Cleveland and The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus. Kevin lives in Sidon, just outside Greenwood city limits in Leflore County.