密西西比州杰克逊市——
来自全国各党的工作人员、律师、基层活动人士和内容创作者正陆续前往密西西比州，观察未来几天对数千张临时选票的审核工作，并为最终结果可能引发的法律挑战做好准备。
密西西比州此前从未因势均力敌的选举而成为全国焦点，如今却站在了这场斗争的最前沿，这场斗争将决定民主党明年在美国参议院的多数党席位规模。
民主党人斯科特·科洛姆在该州以微弱优势领先共和党参议员辛迪·海德-史密斯。该州近40年来从未向参议院输送过民主党议员，重建时期以来也从未有过黑人参议员。
更新于2026年11月5日
预计数据
96% 选票已统计
| 候选人 | 得票率 | 得票数 |
| — | — | — |
| 斯科特·科洛姆（民主党） | 42.6% | 406,020 |
| *辛迪·海德-史密斯（共和党） | 29.4% | 279,842 |
| 泰·平金斯（独立候选人） | 0.3% | 3,255 |
科洛姆和海德-史密斯均组建了庞大的团队，准备在密西西比州12月3日认证结果的截止日期前监督计票流程，并可能对计票程序提出质疑。
“我们为此准备了数月时间，”科洛姆周三对记者表示，“我们有大量律师，有本地律师，所有人都参与进来，确保整个过程符合法律规定。”
在周四的新闻发布会上，该州共和党吹嘘已向全州派出50多名志愿律师和观察员，密西西比州共和党主席迈克尔·赫斯特表示，还将有更多人准备加入提供协助。
“我们的律师和观察员将继续分布在密西西比州各地——监督选举专员审核和处理这些未决选票，确保选举程序得到遵守，且只有合法投票的选票才会被计入，”他说。
无党派组织全国有色人种协进会（NAACP）也参与了选举后工作。
全国有色人种协进会的成员和志愿者正被派往该州全部82个县，监督选举官员如何审核那些因选民没有带证件或未出现在选区选民登记册上而投下的临时选票——在密西西比州这些选票被称为“宣誓选票”。
如果选民未能提供身份证件，全国有色人种协进会的志愿者将紧急联系选民，鼓励他们在11月10日的县级问题解决截止日期前携带有效证件前往县法院。
“我们关注的不是某个人，尤其是非裔美国人，他们不会因为缺乏证件而在这一过程中被剥夺选举权，”全国有色人种协进会主席德里克·约翰逊告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）。
杰克逊所在的希恩兹县的一名选民告诉CNN，她本周为投给科洛姆不得不经历诸多麻烦。23岁的达吉亚·威廉姆斯说，她今年5月从邻近县搬到希恩兹县后，更新了自己的驾照和选民登记信息。
她表示，在选举日前的周日，她查询在线登记信息确认自己已登记在册，但找不到自己的名字时感到担忧。威廉姆斯在2024年参加了初选和总统选举并投了票，当时以为更新信息尚未录入系统。
但在选举日，选举工作人员也找不到她的名字。选举官员给了她一张临时选票，并告诉她必须前往巡回法院再次出示身份证件，尽管她已带着证件前往投票站。
“我觉得人们不应该为了投票而不得不经历各种麻烦，尤其是在密西西比州，”她告诉CNN，还补充道，“很多人甚至不知道宣誓选票或临时选票是什么。”
目前尚待计票的临时选票数量尚不明确。科洛姆的竞选团队本周早些时候估计这一数字为15000张。共和党方面估计，截至周四下午，尚未统计的缺席选票和临时选票多达20000张。
州务卿迈克尔·沃森表示，总数量尚不明确。
科洛姆告诉CNN，他对自己的领先优势感到乐观——周四晚些时候的领先差距约为1800票——随着更多选票被统计，这一优势将继续扩大。
“你看看剩下的选票，就知道这对我们有利，”他说。
科洛姆告诉CNN，选民让全国看到了“密西西比州举足轻重”
科洛姆告诉CNN，选民让全国看到了“密西西比州举足轻重”
1:24 • 来源：CNN
科洛姆告诉CNN，选民让全国看到了“密西西比州举足轻重”
1:24
对选票和县份的严格审查
倡导人士表示，县级选举委员会宣布是否接受或驳回临时选票的过程对公众开放，但各郡县的透明度水平不尽相同。
民主党和共和党律师周四发给当地选举官员的两封针锋相对的信件，凸显出该州将面临多么严格的审查。
代表海德-史密斯竞选团队的律所发出的一封信，要求当地官员将宣誓选票与其余计票分开，并保留所有与选举相关的记录。
科洛姆的律师周四晚间发出了一封回信，称该请求“非法”，并警告不要采取任何可能导致“某张选票被追溯到某位特定选民”的行动，这违反了选票保密法。
在杰克逊所在的该最大县，县 Commissioners 正在公开地分拣数百张宣誓选票。一位 Commissioners 要管理600多份宣誓文件，周四正在处理杰克逊州立大学学生的233份宣誓选票。希恩兹县选举专员费利西亚·麦克林顿表示，她不得不驳回其中一些选票，因为这些年轻选民未在正确选区登记。
有一次，麦克林顿试图查找一名大学生的生日、姓名和社会保障号，但在系统中找不到她的信息。
“这会被驳回，”麦克林顿对CNN表示，当时科洛姆竞选团队的代表在一旁观看并做笔记。
进入密西西比州选举办公室，计票竞争难分胜负
进入密西西比州选举办公室，计票竞争难分胜负
周四，民主党参议院候选人斯科特·科洛姆以微弱优势领先，CNN记者安妮·格雷耶前往密西西比州杰克逊市的一处选举办公室，县 Commissioners 在那里分拣选票，科洛姆正试图罢免现任共和党参议员辛迪·海德-史密斯。
1:54 • 来源：CNN
进入密西西比州选举办公室…
1:54
庞大的律师与观察员团队
这场胶着的竞选可能让一些全国民众感到意外，但民主党表示，他们早已开始准备，因为结果可能取决于少量选票，需要密切关注密西西比州的选举程序。
与民主党结盟的投票权益律所伊利亚斯法律团队，在2026年初就开始重点关注密西西比州的选举规程，利用律所内部成立的名为“选举保护情报协作”的研究团队开展工作。相关工作包括监测该州的媒体、观察当地选举委员会会议，以及深入了解该州的选举运作方式。
代表科洛姆竞选团队的律所律师周三已开始抵达密西西比州。
一位了解相关情况的消息人士告诉CNN，参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默最近也为该州部署了律师和资源。
由史黛西·艾布拉姆斯创立的投票权益政治组织“公平斗争行动”发挥了核心作用，与科洛姆竞选团队和民主党参议院竞选委员会合作。
无党派公民组织“密西西比投票”设立了选民信息热线和虚拟电话银行，为有问题的人提供帮助，目前已有来自全国各地的志愿者加入协助计票工作。
“密西西比投票”政策与研究主任莉莉·莫恩斯告诉CNN，她的团队收到反馈称，被驳回的选票大多是因为选民试图在错误选区投票。
“看到人们的选票因为去错了地方而被驳回，实在令人痛心，”莫恩斯说。
全国对密西西比州的关注还体现在，进步派活动人士、内容创作者杰斯·克雷文本周在全国有色人种协进会的邀请下，从洛杉矶家中飞往杰克逊。她表示，此行目的是“确保每张选票都被计入”。
“这不仅仅是争取多获得一个席位，”克雷文表示，“这关乎南方酝酿已久的重大事件，这件事早已该发生。”
周四接受CNN采访时，科洛姆表示，他花了几个月时间才让自己的政党和全国关注他在密西西比州的参议院竞选。
他没有具体说明有多少律师和代表，但表示自己有“足够的”资源，包括近期通过大力筹款获得的资金注入。
“我对现状充满信心，”他说，“我很高兴人们正付出努力帮我们冲过终点线。”
格雷耶从密西西比州杰克逊市发回报道。CNN记者阿莱娜·法亚兹和艾莉森·戈登为本报道做出了贡献。
The fight is growing over ballot counting in Mississippi’s tight Senate race
Jackson, Mississippi—
National party operatives, lawyers, grassroots activists and content creators are descending on Mississippi to observe the vetting of thousands of provisional ballots in the coming days and to gear up for possible legal challenges over the final results.
Mississippi, a state not used to the national spotlight for close elections, now sits at the forefront of a fight that will determine the size of the Democrats’ majority in the US Senate next year.
Democrat Scott Colom has a razor-thin lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 40 years and no Black person to the Senate since Reconstruction.
Updated Nov 5, 2026
Est.
96%
votes in
| CANDIDATE | VOTES |
| — | — |
| Scott Colom Democratic | 42.6% 406,020 |
| Cindy Hyde-Smith* Republican | 29.4% 279,842 |
| Ty Pinkins Independent | 0.3% 3,255 |
Both Colom and Hyde-Smith have assembled extensive teams ready to observe and potentially challenge ballot-counting procedures ahead of Mississippi’s December 3 deadline for certifying the results.
“We were prepared for this for months,” Colom told reporters Wednesday. “We have an army of lawyers. We have local lawyers. We have everybody involved to make sure the process is followed according to the law.”
At a press conference Thursday, the state GOP touted the 50-plus volunteer attorneys and observers it had sent across the state, and Mississippi Republican Party Chair Michael Hurst said many more are prepared to jump in to help.
“Our attorneys and observers will continue to be in different parts of Mississippi – watching as election commissioners review and process these outstanding ballots, ensuring that our elections are followed and that only ballots which have been legally cast are counted,” he said.
The nonpartisan NAACP also is engaged in post-election work.
NAACP members and volunteers are being deployed to all of the state’s 82 counties to monitor how election officials vet outstanding provisional ballots – known as “affidavit” ballots in Mississippi – cast because the voters lacked photo ID or were not showing up in their precincts’ poll books.
In cases in which a voter failed to provide identification, the NAACP’s volunteers will scramble to contact voters and encourage them to head to the county courthouse with the proper documentation before the November 10 deadline to resolve any issues at the county level.
“Our interest is no individual, particularly African Americans, disenfranchised in this process because of lack of ID,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told CNN.
One voter in Hinds County, home to Jackson, told CNN she had to jump through extra hoops to cast a ballot for Colom this week. Dajia Williams, 23, said she updated her driver’s license and voter registration in May after moving to Hinds from a nearby county.
She said she checked the online registration on the Sunday before the election to make sure she was there and grew concerned when she couldn’t spot her name. Williams, who voted in the primary and presidential elections in 2024, figured the change hadn’t posted yet.
But on Election Day, poll workers couldn’t find her either. The election official provided her with a provisional ballot and told her to go to the circuit court and show her ID again, even though she’d brought it to the polls.
“I don’t feel like people should have to feel like they’re jumping through hoops to to go vote, especially in Mississippi,” she told CNN, adding that “a lot of people don’t even know what an affidavit or a provisional ballot is.”
It’s not clear how many provisional ballots remain to be counted. Officials in Colom’s campaign pegged the number at 15,000 earlier this week. Republicans estimated that as many as 20,000 absentee ballots and provisional ballots were outstanding as of Thursday afternoon.
Secretary of State Michael Watson has said the total number is unknown.
Colom told CNN that he was optimistic his lead – at about 1,800 votes late Thursday – would continue to grow as more ballots were counted.
“You look at the ballots that are left, you know, it’s going in our favor,” he said.
Colom tells CNN voters showed the country ‘Mississippi matters’
Colom tells CNN voters showed the country ‘Mississippi matters’
1:24 • Source: CNN
Colom tells CNN voters showed the country ‘Mississippi matters’
1:24
Intense scrutiny of ballots and counties
The proceedings during which county election committees announce whether to accept or reject a provisional ballot are open to the public, but the levels of transparency vary county to county, advocates say.
Dueling letters sent to local election officials Thursday from the Democratic and Republican attorneys showcased the intense scrutiny the state will be under.
A letter from the law firm representing the Hyde-Smith campaign requested that local officials segregate affidavit ballots from the rest of the count, and that they preserve other election-related records.
Colom’s lawyers shot back Thursday night with a letter of their own calling the request “unlawful,” and warning against taking any step that would allow “particular ballot to be traced to a particular voter,” in violation of ballot secrecy laws.
In the state’s largest county that is home to Jackson, county commissioners are sorting through hundreds of affidavit ballots in a way that is open for the public to observe. One commissioner has over 600 affidavits to manage, and on Thursday was trying to make a dent in the 233 affidavit ballots from students at Jackson State University. Hinds County Election Commissioner Felicia McClinton said she had to reject a number of them because the young voters were not registered in the right precinct.
In one instance, McClinton tried searching for a college student’s birthday, name, and social security number but could not locate her in the system.
“This will be rejected,” McClinton told CNN, as representatives from the Colom campaign looked on and took notes.
Inside a Mississippi election office in too-close-to-call vote count
Inside a Mississippi election office in too-close-to-call vote count
With Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom leading by a razor-thin margin on Thursday, CNN’s Annie Grayer went inside an election office in Jackson, Mississippi, where county commissioners sorted through ballots as Colom seeks to unseat incumbent GOP Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.
1:54 • Source: CNN
Inside a Mississippi election office in …
1:54
Armies of lawyers and observers
The tight race may have been a shock to some across the country, but Democrats say they began preparing early for the possibility that the results could come down to a small number of votes, requiring close attention to Mississippi’s election procedures.
The Elias Law Group – a voting rights law firm aligned with Democrats – ramped up its attention Mississippi’s election protocols in early 2026, using a team of researchers set up within the firm called the Election Protection Intelligence Collaborative. The work included monitoring in-state media, watching meetings of local election commissions, and developing a granular level of knowledge about how elections are run in the state.
Lawyers for the firm, which is representing the Colom campaign, began arriving in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also recently deployed lawyers and resources for the state, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
Fair Fight Action, a voting rights focused political organization founded by Stacey Abrams, is playing a central role, working with the Colom campaign and the DSCC.
Mississippi Votes, a nonpartisan civic organization, has set up a voter information hotline and virtual phone banking to help anyone who has questions about the ballot curing process as volunteers from across the country arrive to help the effort.
Lily Moens, the policy and research director at Mississippi Votes, told CNN that her team is hearing that the majority of ballots that are being rejected are because voters tried to vote at the incorrect precincts.
“It’s disheartening to see folks’ ballots being rejected because they were just at the wrong location,” Moens said.
In one sign of the national focus on Mississippi, Jess Craven, a progressive activist and content creator, flew to Jackson this week from her home in Los Angeles at the invitation of the NAACP. She said she was there to “make sure that every vote is counted.”
“It’s not just about picking up another seat,” Craven said. “It’s about a seismic event in the South that’s long overdue.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Colom said it took him months to get his party and the nation to pay attention to his Senate race in Mississippi.
Without specifying how many lawyers and representatives he has, Colom said he has “enough” resources, including a late influx of cash from an aggressive fundraising push.
“I’m confident about where we are,” he said. “I’m glad people are doing what it takes to get us over the finish line.”
Grayer reported from Jackson, Mississippi. CNN’s Aleena Fayaz and Allison Gordon contributed to this report.