With the outcome of Mississippi’s U.S. Senate election between Democrat Scott Colom and U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith hinging on the results of affidavit ballots, the Mississippi Free Press is working to find out how many affidavit ballots each county has uncounted.
Rankin County received 1,667 affidavit ballots, but county election commissioners have not yet decided which to accept or reject, Rankin County Circuit Clerk Michelle Adcock reported in a Facebook post on Wednesday evening. The county also received 282 mail-in absentee ballots that commissioners need to process.
That’s a county where Hyde-Smith leads Colom 61.7%-36.1%. If she won affadavit and mail-in absentee ballots by the same margin, she would net 499 votes from Rankin County. But in Lafayette County, Colom did significantly better among affadavit ballots than in overall votes.
The county could as receive up to 138 additional mail-in absentee ballots as long as they are postmarked and received within five business days of the election, which is Tuesday, Nov. 10. The totals remained the same on Thursday, Adcock said.
In all, 52.23% of registered Rankin County cast a ballot for the Nov. 3 election. The circuit clerk said Rankin County’s chancery court judge race will likely headed to a runoff election between Bo Agnew and Keri H. Carroll if no candidate on the ballot receives least 50% of the vote, unofficial results show. Madison and Rankin counties’ circuit court judge race could also have a runoff election between Sarah Butler and Scott Gilbert.
