What are the recount rules in tight Mississippi Senate race?

With 97% of the votes counted as of Friday, Democratic candidate Scott Colom is about 2,500 votes ahead of the incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Mississippi’s Secretary of State Michael Watson said on Wednesday that 3,600 “absentee-by-mail ballots” were still to be counted. The state can accept these votes so long as they were postmarked by election day and are received by 10 November.

Watson said there are also an “unknown” number of provisional ballots, also known as affidavit ballots, to be counted. These are typically cast when a voter lacked the required identification to cast their vote. The deadline for voters to resolve any ID issues with provisional ballots, usually by providing acceptable photo identification, is also 10 November.

Mississippi Republican Party Chair Michael Hurst said on Thursday that they estimated there could be “approximately 20,000 outstanding ballots left to be counted”.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign said the same day that “thousands of votes remain to be counted from dozens of Republican counties” and it is “confident” this will secure her re-election. She has held the seat since 2018.

Colom said the election saw “historic voter turnout” and he is “confident that when votes are counted, we will flip this seat”. If he wins, he would be the first black US senator elected in the state since 1875.