Mississippi Senate race hangs on thousands of ballots tangled in voter roll purge dispute

Days after Mississippi's midterm election, tens of thousands of ballots remain uncounted in a U.S. Senate race that has yet to be called — and the outcome may turn on whether voters purged from local poll books can prove they were wrongly removed. Democrat Scott Colom, a district attorney, holds a narrow lead over Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, but county election officials across the state's 82 counties are still working through a record volume of affidavit ballots, Mississippi's term for provisional ballots, with a certification deadline of Friday and a state deadline of December 3.

Michael Watson, the secretary of state, put the number of uncounted affidavit ballots somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000. As of Monday evening, his office reported that 15,547 had been processed, with roughly 76 percent accepted — a figure Watson acknowledged is higher than usual, and which he attributed to voter roll maintenance activity. Another 2,578 absentee ballots remained outstanding, according to dissenter.com. More than 100,000 Mississippians voted absentee by mail, with Monday serving as the deadline for those ballots to reach election offices, according to PBS.

At the center of the dispute is a list-maintenance program overseen by Watson's office that used commercially available address data from the credit reporting company Experian to flag voters who may have moved. According to Mississippi Today as cited by dissenter.com, the inactive-status designation was applied to more than 230,000 voters — close to one in nine across the state — who were then left out of local poll books before Election Day. Voters marked inactive were not automatically removed, but they did not appear in precinct poll books, forcing them to cast affidavit ballots if they showed up to vote.

I cannot make an election commissioner do his or her job.— Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State

Watson defended the program during a Monday interview on SuperTalk Mississippi, arguing that his office only provides counties with flagged information and that local election commissioners are legally responsible for verifying it before making any changes to a voter's status. He said the affidavit ballot process functions as a safety net for errors commissioners make during roll maintenance.

So, this isn't a change done by the Secretary of State's office. And I've heard people say, 'Well, you're passing the buck.' What I am doing is explaining how the law works.— Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State

But at least one county official directly contradicted that framing. Tonya Rivers, an election commissioner in Rankin County, told Democracy Docket that Watson's office supplied inaccurate data and failed to adequately inform local officials that Experian information had been added to the system. She said commissioners only learned about the Experian partnership after raising concerns about address-change accuracy, and received an explanation at a training session in January.

We have heard it is apparently our fault, that we are not properly using the Experian data and that is causing these problems. And I will say that I strongly disagree with that.— Tonya Rivers, Election Commissioner, Rankin County

Because they are completely nowhere near correct information. Like, they're insane.— Tonya Rivers, Election Commissioner, Rankin County

Some voters Rivers spoke with had been assigned suggested new addresses in states they said they had never set foot in. The latest batch of address-change data sent to Rankin County alone contained roughly 16,000 suggested updates. Her county's rejection rate was running above normal, and she tied part of that increase to the Experian data. She flagged two further problems as well: some voters had cast ballots at the wrong precinct, and some poll workers had neglected to sign affidavit-ballot envelopes — an error that can lead to a ballot being thrown out even when the voter followed every rule correctly.

And they're upset. And now they don't trust us. That's not a great situation to be in. It's a terrible situation.— Tonya Rivers, Election Commissioner, Rankin County

Experian itself has distanced itself from the program. Citing CNN, dissenter.com reported that the company said its product "was not designed or intended to validate voter records" and that it had ended its work with the state by early 2025. Critics note that in a state where more than 9 percent of residents do not use a bank, credit data is an unreliable foundation for determining voter eligibility.

Election law experts say Mississippi's approach is unusual. In many other states, voters placed on inactive lists can still cast a standard ballot at the correct precinct, and federal law preserves their eligibility through two federal general elections. Michael Morse of the University of Pennsylvania's law school told dissenter.com that Mississippi "short-circuits the process by hastily excluding you from the poll book." According to CNN, county election officials said voter ID problems made up only a small portion of provisional ballots, which points to the roll purge — rather than ID requirements — as the primary reason affidavit ballot numbers are running so high.

On the ground, the consequences have been concrete. David Wilson told PBS he had been voting at the same location for years and found himself mistakenly removed from the rolls, requiring a trip to the Hinds County Courthouse to resolve. According to dissenter.com, Andrew Couch had cast ballots at the same polling place in each of his previous two elections, yet on Election Day he was informed that his registration showed a county where he had not lived for six years; he submitted an affidavit ballot and learned on Monday that it would not be counted.

I'm very upset. If people lose faith in the process that we're going through, I think it's going to hurt voter turnout in general in the future.— Andrew Couch, Mississippi Voter

Jessica Carter of VoteRiders, a nonprofit focused on voter education, told PBS that many voters remained confused about why they were asked to cast affidavit ballots and what happens next. According to Watson, affidavit voters who lacked a photo ID must bring one to the courthouse within five days, while everyone else who cast an affidavit ballot for a different reason is not required to make that trip.

A lot of people are confused right now. They don't know why they were asked to do an affidavit ballot or told they needed to do one, and they don't know why or what the process is.— Jessica Carter, VoteRiders

Watson, for his part, acknowledged disruption but minimized it.

Is there going to be a little bit of pain? Perhaps.— Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State

Would those soldiers that died across the seas fighting for our freedom switch places with them for that extra five minutes waiting in line? You better believe it.— Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State

Beyond the ballot mechanics, the race carries broader significance. A Colom victory would make him the first Black person to represent Mississippi in the Senate since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, according to PBS. Professor D'Andra Orey of Jackson State University told PBS that fears of losing voting rights actually mobilized turnout, and that economic concerns — particularly cost of living — drew some white voters toward Colom, including split-ticket voters like Ginger Vaughn of Decatur, who told PBS she voted for Colom because she felt Hyde-Smith had not delivered results.

Watson defended his office's voter roll maintenance program as necessary to prevent fraud, saying it was designed to remove "dead people, illegal aliens with fake addresses, or nonresidents" from the rolls, according to dissenter.com. Watson went on to say that "the system at the end of the day… is working as it was designed." County election officials must review and decide on affidavit ballots in open public meetings that members of the public may attend.

Why it matters — The outcome of a U.S. Senate race — and potentially the size of the Democratic majority — now depends on whether thousands of Mississippi voters can prove they were wrongly removed from poll books by a voter roll program that used credit data the credit company itself says was never meant for this purpose.

Sources differ on Who is responsible for errors in voter roll changes: Secretary of State Watson says county election commissioners are legally responsible for verifying information before changing voter status; his office only provides flagged data. (democracydocket.com) vs Rankin County Election Commissioner Tonya Rivers says Watson's office supplied inaccurate Experian data without adequately informing local officials, and that commissioners were not consulted before the data was incorporated. (democracydocket.com)

Reported by pbs.org, dissenter.com, sunherald.com, wlbt.com, democracydocket.com, axios.com