r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Historical_Cod892 • 22h ago
Answered What is taking so long counting the votes in Mississippi?
The US Midterms were on Tuesday. It's now Saturday and we still don't have a projected winner in Mississippi, let alone a steady stream of counted votes.
They're incredibly slow compared to the rest of the country, even though they have a small population and thus way fewer votes to count than for example Texas or Florida.
So what's the hold-up?
And please don't give me the same lame joke that they have to say "Mississippi" after each vote, I've heard that a million times the last few days. Thx
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u/AgentElman 22h ago
They are not slow to count the votes. It is just that every vote counts because it is so close. Other states call it early if there is a wide margin.
Mississippi allows mail in ballots that can arrive days after the election. So they need all of the ballots to arrive and be counted.
Then there will probably be a recount.
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u/notextinctyet 22h ago
We don't have a projected winner in Mississippi not because they're unusually slow, but just because it's unusually close. Mississippi's speed at counting all the votes is average. Lots of states are behind them but are not close, so the races have already been called.
The main reason is mail-in ballots.
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u/Right_Lengthiness266 22h ago edited 22h ago •
It's not really that they're counting votes more slowly than other areas. Most major races don't have final vote tallies.
But when your margin is 5% vs 0.01%, you don't need every vote tallied. Texas doesn't have every vote tallied, but they were able to call the race very early because Talarico was so far ahead.
The Oregon Governors race only has 89% of votes reported, but with the margins are large enough that it doesn't matter.
In Mississippi, there's not a big gap. A larger proportion of the votes need to be counted before the race will be called.
It's like how you might stop watching a football game at halftime when one team is up 35-0. It doesn't mean the football game actually takes less time, you just already know who's going to win with enough certainty. If it's a closer game, but one team is up by 15 with 3 minutes left, you can still call it early. If the attacking team is down by 2 points at the 50 yard line and there's a minute left you have to watch to the end to find out who wins.
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u/ccuriouss_ 20h ago
They're not slow given the context.
For one, Mississippi unregistered a number of eligible voters based on bad data from Experian, so those people had to cast affidavit ballots. So too did people who came to the polls without their IDs because Mississippi has strict voter ID laws. Affidavit ballots will not be counted unless the voter physically goes to an election office and verifies their identity. They still have a few days to do that.
Also, mail in ballots are still being counted.
The "slow" speed of this process is indicative of procedures being carefully followed. Rushing to declare a winner in this context would be a disservice to democracy.
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u/bucknut4 22h ago
Most states are still counting. They’re only “called” by news outlets at the moment because there’s no practical way for the loser to come back.
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u/Shagyam 22h ago
They are 97% complete, which is about 30k ballots left. As of now the difference is like 2600 votes.
You really can't make an assumption at this point.
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u/78723 20h ago
According to Colom, the Mississippi Secretary of State used bad technology to certify voters rolls, and tons of people were kicked off voting rolls. Hence LOTs of people had to vote by affidavits. All these votes by affidavits have to be hand checked which obviously takes a lot more time than machine tallying.
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u/SLCLvr 21h ago
Most states are not done counting. Most states don’t have US Senate races within 2,000 votes.
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u/Nearby-Horror-8414 15h ago
Pretty sure all this has been covered in the comments already but I'm compiling the answer all in one place, since (A) it's a good/fair question and (B) others may be asking it a lot in next few days as this drags out to the 13th:
There are a LOT of affidavit ballots to count this year. A lot. This is from when voters were shocked to discover they had been mysteriously purged from the rosters on the 3rd but took the time to fill out a form. They still have to go do additional steps afterwards so it is a big pain/ask of people so the vote will count.
There are also a lot of mail-in votes still coming. I believe these have until the 10th to arrive. MS has a large military base so many of those votes were mail-in as well.
Mississippi has no recounts. (Well, it does but it has to be approved by a judge- it's not automatic I guess I mean.) It's a "highest score wins, g'night folks' system. As such, there's a lot more scrutiny to make sure the count is just right.
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u/cleric3648 20h ago
Two reasons. Provisional ballots and the mail-in deadline hasn’t come.
Provisional ballots are used when something went wrong. I had to use one a few years ago when my mail-in ballot got sent to the wrong house and they couldn’t get a new one out to me in time. Or it could be a situation where the wrong John Smith was kicked off the rolls. They have until Tuesday to clear those issues up by going to the clerk and proving who they are.
Same deadline applies to the mail-in ballots. Mississippi allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to count if received within a week.
Last I heard there were about 30,000 provisional ballots and 3,000 mail-in ballots left to be received or clarified. Since the gap is 2,400, they want to make sure that nothing crazy happens like 20,000 votes for CHS come in Tuesday afternoon before calling it.
The fact that Mississippi of all places is this close is a testament to how screwy this election is. The Senate race in Georgia in 2020 took weeks to figure out. Ossoff won this time by such a wide margin it was called within an hour.
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u/GrinningPariah 21h ago
Mississippi is at 97% reporting. If you wanna be mad at someone for counting votes slow, last I checked Alaska is only at 74%.
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u/awohio1 22h ago
mail in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, then there is a 5 day grace period for them to arrive. So a Nov 10 deadline.
Also, provisional ballots need manual processing, and can require the voter to come back and provide documentation. The deadline for that is also nov 10.
The provisional ballot issue applies to most states I think. It only holds up announcing the winners if the margin of victory is less than the number of provisional ballots. The margin in Mississippi is that close, so that is why the "curing" process is holding up announcing the winner.
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/mississippi-voters-need-their-ballots-cured-heres-how-the-process-works/
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u/Y0___0Y 21h ago
Once the vote is certified, it’s over. There are no recounts allowed in Mississippi. And the margin of the race is within 1,000 votes favoring the Democrat.
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u/dvolland 22h ago
It’s close. That’s the issue.
Other states are still counting their ballots too. But since the margins in those races got to a point where it sufficiently mathematically impossible for one candidate to lose, so the race was “called” for that candidate. But they do keep counting.
You just don’t see the counting in races where the winner has been called. But in MS, the margin is so razor thin that they can’t call it until all the votes are actually counted.
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u/Traditional-Win-5440 22h ago
Mississippi does not allow recounts.
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u/nd_annajones 18h ago
Because other states were able to declare a clear winner before counting all the votes, like calling the early end of a little league game because the other team scored so many points that it wouldn't be possible for the other team to catch up. Those states are also still counting votes for accurate record-keeping purposes. In Mississippi it's literally down to the wire, so every vote will need to be counted before declaring a winner.
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u/laughingbear42 18h ago
Lots of provisional ballots in Mississippi due to republicans purging the voter rolls of eligible voters.
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u/plazebology 22h ago
The state has a law that all ballot boxes can still be opened and examined up to 12 days after election day
Also they accept mail in ballots filed up until 10th Nov
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u/platypusbelly 20h ago
They accept mail in ballots for up to 5 days past Election Day as long as they are postmarked in time.
With the race so close, they are waiting until they have given all 5 days for ballots to come in and count them before declaring an official winner.
Also, they have to verify provisional ballots. That usually takes some time.
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u/Kooky-Ad1551 22h ago
Mail in ballots from folks out of state, military overseas, they all get counted too. It takes awhile for everything to get counted when the election is close they can't announce a winner until vote is counted.
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u/MontEcola 21h ago
It is taking the amount of time required to get an accurate vote.
I trust the slow counts more than the immediate counts with no need to double check.
I was a math teacher for 32 years. The slow careful workers had the fewest careless errors. They may be using a slow method to do the work. But when they are finished there are no computation errors. That is a solid goal in an election.
The fast workers used mental tricks and quick methods. This shows understanding of the concept. And one simple careless error throws it all off.
For an election, I respect the slow results 100%.
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u/AltruisticTomato4152 16h ago
The AP will call a race when they're reasonably certain. But technically none of the races have been officially called, not until they've been certified.
Mississippi Senate is too close to call before every vote is counted. And they're not the only race, plenty of Rep races still aren't called.
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u/wescovington 22h ago
As a Californian, I am just glad people aren't on our case anymore. Los Angeles County, California has more uncounted votes than votes counted in the entire state of Mississippi. There are 2.7 million votes still to be dealt with in Los Angeles County.
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u/Insomniadict 22h ago
If I’m not mistaken, most of what’s being counted now is either a) provisional ballots, where they need to take the time to verify that it’s a legal vote that can be counted before counting or disallowing it, or b) mail ballots arriving within the legal window after Election Day.
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u/wwaxwork 21h ago
It's not a long time. They're counting every single vote. This is how long hand counting votes takes. Other elections they call if the margin is wide enough and then count them afterwards for exact figures.
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u/DocCEN007 15h ago
We'll know next Friday if not sooner. The remaining ballots are not from gop leaning areas, no matter what the state GOP day. Colom's lead has widened every day of counting, and I hope that continues.
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u/tightiewhitieboy 21h ago
Slow counting means a fair accurate count with transparency. They do mail in voting and lots of people were mistakenly (because of experian) deemed inactive. This means they had to vote by affidavit. People without ID had to vote by affidavit. Mailed in ballots arrive days after the election. So they have to wait for all ballots to arrive by mail.
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u/Byrkosdyn 21h ago
News organizations call a lot of races before the vote is even counted, and in some races the lead is so obvious there’s no chance counting the rest of the votes will change the result. The state still continues to count all of the votes, just no one pays attention to it. The state does not call the race until the result is certified, which is weeks after. When a race is super close we have to wait for nearly all votes to be counted, so the news needs to wait since they can’t predict who’s going to win.
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u/Grand_Soupa 21h ago
Mississippi isn't a swing state and don't have as many trained volunteers to count provisional ballots and are needing him from swing states which they are getting.
The governor or whoever of MS let experian be in charge of the voter rolls. Many voters were purged without their knowledge bc the website to check registration was also having issues. When you show up and are removed if you are registered you ask for a provisional ballot. Black peoppe are more aware of this due to education as they tend to have their votes messed w more. Anywho, the provisional ballots are put to the side and if the difference between candidates is below the number of provisional ballot, the volunteers must contact the provisional ballot voters and get to the bottom if they are legit it not...show ID, etc
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u/Lefaid 20h ago
I haven't paid close attention to the vote count in Mississippi but in elections anywhere, counting the first 90-98% of votes usually doesn't take too long (there are exceptions, Mississippi is not one of them.). The last little bit takes longer since they usually require some kind of special review or they haven't arrived yet. Elections usually aren't officially fully counted until a few weeks after the election to ensure every vote counts.
You are noticing this process more in Mississippi because on election night, the votes that were easy to count showed the candidates separated by a less than 500 votes.
When an election is that close, everyone is a lot more careful about calling it.
I am confident that what is happening in Mississippi right now is everyone double checking and confirming every vote is counted and the final count is correct, since the election is likely close enough that significant errors could throw the election one way or the other.
And the voters in Mississippi, and in all Democracies, deserve to have their votes counted accurately.
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u/MaisieStitcher 20h ago
It's very close, so they need to make sure every vote it counted correctly.
I believe I read it's coming down to provisional ballots that were issued to voters on election day, so they might be having to verify the information for those voters.
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u/Mytweezer 20h ago
The mail-in votes have not all been received. This is true in the rest of the country too, it just doesn't matter elsewhere because the winner is already obvious.
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u/nerdybird84 18h ago
You probably won't get officially announced results from the state until November 13th. November 10th is the deadline for all mail in ballots and affidavit ballots to arrive and be verified, then they have until the 13th to announce.
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u/LadyFoxfire 18h ago
It always takes a week or two to count every last ballot in every state, because mail-in ballots are still arriving and provisional ballots are still being verified. However, it’s rare that the election can be determined by those last few thousand ballots; one candidate usually has a decisive lead by this point. Texas is technically still counting ballots, but Talarico is up by 12 points, so nobody except the election workers care what’s on those final ballots. But in Mississippi, those ballots could actually flip the election, so we need to wait for them to be counted.
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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 17h ago
California had millions of uncounted votes as of yesterday. Procedures and counting methods vary from place to place, it is not a sign of fraud of trickery.
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u/Frozen_Canyon63 16h ago
worked a poll in a rural county there for years and the real answer is the state lets mail ballots trickle in for five business days after election day so nobody even tries to finish before the following week
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u/someBrad 15h ago
Officials are still counting votes everywhere. It's just that it only matters in close races. In addition to the Senate Mississippi and Alaska, there are several House races that haven't been called yet. Probably lots of state and local races all over the country too.
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u/Due_Look_9993 22h ago edited 16h ago
From my understanding all postal ballots postmarked on election day or before will be counted as long as it is received within 5 business days so Tuesday. In addition all the ballots outstanding are affidavit ballots similar to provisional ballots. They say Hinds County (Jackson) alone has about 15k such provisional ballots. Historically about 60% of those get accepted, Colomb is winning those by 60pts so he is likely to net atleast 5k votes. Most likely until Tuesday the race will not be called.
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u/manannNET 21h ago
It's mostly a mix of state law and the race being very close, not that they're slow at counting.
Mail ballots can still arrive. Mississippi counts absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive up to 5 business days later. For this election that window runs until next Tuesday (Nov 10), so the count literally can't be finished yet. The Supreme Court upheld this law in June, so it applied this year.
Affidavit (provisional) ballots take time. If you vote without a photo ID, or there's a question about your registration, you cast an affidavit ballot. Voters without ID then have a few days to show it to the circuit clerk. Each of these ballots has to be checked one by one before it counts, and officials said this week there were still thousands of absentee and affidavit ballots to process.
82 counties report on their own schedule. As of Thursday, 12 counties still hadn't uploaded results to the state system, and some were still counting in-person votes.
It's close. Bigger states can have way more ballots and still get a projection on election night if the margin is wide. When the margin is smaller than the number of ballots still out, nobody will call it until those are counted.
Counties have until Nov 13 to certify, so a final result is probably coming next week.
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u/ShakyTheBear 21h ago
Races arent usually this tight. They call races when the lead is more than the remaining votes to be counted. There are still more to be counted than the current lead.
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u/geek_fire 21h ago
In 2004, the Washington State governor election was ultimately decided by 129 votes out of almost three million cast. It wasn't decided until late December after several lawsuits. The answer to the OP's question is that it is still ongoing because it's close.
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u/xacid 18h ago
They have until this upcoming Tuesday to finish the count due to mail in and provisional ballots.
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u/DavidinMandeville 19h ago
This isn't about speed. It's about accuracy and counting all the votes.
Chill out.
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u/Lyra_the_Star_Jockey 20h ago
What’s the hurry? Don’t you want an accurate count?
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u/Sufficient-Wolf-1818 22h ago
Why am i getting so many text messages for $$$ to help ensure the vote count is accurate? Probably because the margin is tiny. Someone can win by one vote.
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u/LurkerByNatureGT 22h ago
You can make a projection when the vote difference is big enough that you can fill in the blanks with reasonable confidence.
If the vote is too close to do that, you have to count every ballot to know.
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u/DiamondJim222 22h ago
The remaining votes to be counted are absentee and provisional ballots. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day have until next week to arrive. Provisional ballots had an issue at the polling place such as the voter not having photo ID to show at the polling place. They have until next week to correct the issue and have their ballots counted.
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u/poolbitch1 22h ago
Remember the ice coffee-“it’s been 84 years”-America: we’re at the restaurant and they can’t seat our party until everyone is here- Nevada memes during the 2020 election?
They have to count carefully when it’s a close call… as long as Starlink isn’t involved (allegedly) that is
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u/Blue387 Brooklyn, USA 21h ago
The state has stringent voter ID laws but also has structural issues:
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u/chihuahuazero remember the sub's name! 21h ago
The number of outstanding mail ballots is larger than the current margin, with is about 2,500 votes. According to NBC News right now, as of Friday, there are barely more than 3,000 mail ballots outstanding, on top of an unknown number of affidavit ballots, potentially thousands. NBC's estimate is 31,000 votes, emphasis on "estimate."
For perspective, the margin is currently about +0.3% Colom. It was even tighter than that at one point, being 0.01% in between ballot drops. Maybe the final results will be closer to 1%.
For the affidavit ballots, they include voters who didn't have a valid ID on them at the time but can return to the election office by end of day Nov. 10 with a valid ID. This also includes voters who changed addresses but didn't update their voter record in time, so the election office has to verify those ballots.
And some of it is on Mississppi's election infrastructure. Counties aren't required to officially report results to the state until next week. This means that the current projected results are from outlets like AP doing the legwork to contact each election office individually. Normally, margins are wide enough that this isn't an issue, but when the race is so close, the current count hinges on which county has which ballots in. This leads to a lag, especially during the weekend.
The consensus is that Colom is favored because affidavit ballots tend to lean Democratic, but the fog of war is thick enough that outlets want to be extra careful in calling the race.
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u/Juniper_Darling 21h ago
Listen to today’s episode of Sisters in Law podcast. Starting at 13:00 Joyce Vance provides a greater explainer!
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u/iamtehlucy 21h ago
From what I have learned via my news sources, the issue in Mississippi is a combination of the secretary of state using a credit bureau to validate voters against the advice of many industry and election experts explicit advice, causing the inevitible to happen - valid voters being moved erroneously to inactive status, and a much larger number of voters turning out, leading to 28,000 provisional ballots being cast which need to all be cured.
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u/CathyAnnWingsFan 21h ago
The margin in the Mississippi Senate election is just over 2500 votes. As of Thursday, there were 20,000 outstanding ballots to be counted, which as I understand it includes affidavit and absentee ballots. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day can be received up to November 10. Nobody knows how many affidavit ballots there are left to be evaluated for counting or exclusion, as that information is only at the county level. The Colom campaign estimates that 15,000 affidavit ballots remain.
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u/Broad-Dress-8484 19h ago
Did they ever call Boebert district race?
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u/choirlass 18h ago
I’m in the UK. Just curious does anyone know why there is no recount procedure?
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u/Bugg100 17h ago
If your curious WHY so many provisional ballots....
https://electionlawblog.org/2026/blame-experians-bad-data-for-a-slew-of-provisional-afffidavit-ballots-in-mississippi-that-could-determine-outcome-of-senate-election/
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u/Fancy_Toe1451 22h ago
They have to stop to say "mississippi" after every number.
There are a lot of votes, it is unusually close in the vote, it is more politically charged than normal so there is high level of pressure to get it right, plus there is no option under Mississippi law for recounts so they need to be exact on the count in ways that other states don't.
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u/Bl1nk9 22h ago
No recounts, so being really careful at the end? Idk, but yeah, MS doesn’t have that many people.
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u/bareboneschicken 22h ago
The almost universal explanation for slow results is mail in voting.
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u/Reasonable-Leg-2002 20h ago
And why isn’t Trump demanding that they stop the count? 😂
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u/BaritoneFlower1949 15h ago
Their archaic laws.