MS court clerk updates tight Senate vote as critical deadlines approach

[0:00] Mississippi's Senate race still counting and still not called. Right now, the Democrat in the race, Scott Colom, is ahead of the Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,500 plus votes. This morning, Mississippi Secretary of State says that roughly 2,800 absentee mail-in ballots are still out and on their way in. Possibly there are also some key deadlines looming here to keep an eye on for this week. Tomorrow is the deadline for voters to resolve any ID issues on the state's [0:30] provisional ballots. It's also the deadline for counties to receive absentee ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day. And counties also must certify their results by November 13th, which is this Friday. CNN's Annie Greer is in Jackson, Mississippi, has been on the ground doing a lot of important reporting for us. What are you hearing now about where things stand in this moment and when there could be an actual result? Well, good morning, Kate. We're here in the building with [1:03] where voters in Hines County will go to fix any ballot issues if they need to bring in their photo ID, if they need to fix any identification issues with their provisional ballots. This is the building that they will head to. And we watched the count come in over the weekend very slowly. There are still a lot of provisional ballots left to be counted. Some have predicted somewhere between 15 and 20,000 provisional ballots. And in the state of Mississippi, this is called affidavit ballots. And they could be the ballgame in the Senate race that is [1:33] still too close to call. Now, Democrat Scott Colombe says he's increasingly confident that as more votes come in, that his lead will only increase. We have not seen Republican Senator Cindy Hyde Smith since being in Mississippi, whereas Colombe has held at least eight events since Election Day talking to voters. And yesterday I went to Cindy Hyde Smith's hometown to talk to Republicans to get a sense for what they think happened here in Mississippi that is now on the precipice for the first time flipping blue in many, many years. Take a [2:03] listen to one voter who talked about how Democrats really focused on their ground game and got a lot of energy from voters out of it. This was definitely the Democrats did something right. And they had some good candidates. I think a lot of the Republican commentary that I've seen have said that, you know, we've got to do a better job in long range planning who our candidates are going to be. The Democrats did a really good job. The Democratic Party [2:35] did a good job and they got candidates out there and they got the people excited and you don't see movements like that if the work wasn't put in. Now, as we are waiting for this vote to come in, both sides are preparing for a legal battle. Republicans have deployed 50 lawyers across the state. Democrats have sent in resources from all over the country to be here in case a legal battle ensues. But it's really an unprecedented situation that we are in. This is a state that President Trump carried by nearly [3:08] Democrats have not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in nearly four decades. And we'll be watching this vote count in very, very closely as this race still remains too close to call. Annie, thank you so much for being there. We continue to watch it. John. All right. With us now, the former chief strategist for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, Stuart Stevens, who also worked for George W. Bush, and who also happens to be, if memory serves, a child of Yazoo County, Mississippi. [3:39] The fact that Scott Colombe is poised, we don't know for sure yet, but could very well be the next senator from the state of Mississippi. Well, John, I'm actually from Hans County where that courthouse was and I spent a good bit of my life in that courthouse watching him count ballots and they do a very good job. Um, look, I think, you know, Ole Miss played Georgia Saturday night and at the half it was 24 to nothing Georgia. And the game wasn't technically over, but everybody knew it was over. And I think that's where we are now. Scott Colombe is going to win this race by more than 5,000 votes. Um, look, you know, Sidney Hyde Smith was a [4:13] sort of an accidental candidate. She was appointed, uh, governor Phil Bryant, uh, is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. All the senators from Mississippi had either been Ole Miss or Mississippi state. He wanted a Southern grad and he got one in Sidney Hyde Smith. Um, she's been sort of a ghost on Capitol Hill. So I think you had this confluence of circumstances and all these races I did down in Mississippi for Republicans. It was always harder than people realized because depending on the African American turnout, you had Republican say, [4:43] you got 7% of the African American turnout, which is pretty much what you got. You really need to get 65 to 70% of the white vote. And that's never easy. And I think what's going to happen here is that, uh, Sidney Hyde Smith is going to get closer to 68%. There's 25,000 votes out there that look like they voted for Republican candidates and voted for, uh, for, uh, for Scott. Um, and, you know, just hearing that gentleman talk about the difference in quality of candidates, it's just, [5:13] I call him a great candidate, uh, from a great family with the history of Mississippi and Sidney Hyde Smith is just doesn't seem to be enjoying this. Uh, my apologies to Hines County. I, I, I, I misdirected your hometown, Stuart. I do appreciate that. And do thank you for the education on Mississippi politics there. I think that's really informative here now is the circuit clerk of the heavily Republican leaning, uh, county of George County, Mississippi, Chad Welford. He serves as the registrar of voters and issues on all absentee ballots. Mr. Welford, [5:44] thank you so much for joining us. So counties must certify their results by Friday. The secretary of state says 75 of 82 counties in your state have uploaded their unofficial election results. Where do things stand in your county right now? And do you expect we'll know the winner this week? I do. Um, we've uploaded all our results, um, except the few that are coming in by mail or the IDs that have five days to perfect their affidavit ballots. Um, but we expect to have that [6:16] in George County resolved Thursday morning early because the deadline to present them is Tuesday at five o'clock. So tell us more about the, um, affidavit process and why they're so critical. I mean, a lot of people call them provisional ballots in Mississippi. They're considered affidavit ballots. Tell us more about that and the kind of response you're getting in terms of people curing their ballots, because these are really the ballots that could make the difference. [6:48] And they have to look at each one individually to make sure that they voted in the correct precinct. They're eligible voter under Mississippi law. And at that point in time, they can accept or reject that ballot. That doesn't mean they're counted at that moment, but they're accepted, rejected and put into a stack so that we can count them when the process is finished. Mississippi Secretary of State said, oh, go ahead. [7:23] So we research each one, you know, um, very well to make sure that we give credit to those voters who are eligible to cast a ballot because we won't ever vote to count it as under Mississippi law eligible. So Mississippi Secretary of State said yesterday that about 77% of the provisional ballots have been accepted. Both parties, as you will know, are gearing up for a legal battle over how those are counted. How is your office preparing for any possible legal challenges? We under the same process where forever election, you know, we, we [7:56] count our ballots. We do a good job. Let's commissioners work tirelessly. Our poll workers work tirelessly. We seal everything. We keep everything in order. So if a lawsuit is filed in George County, and I would say most every county in state of Mississippi that we've we've got the ballot secured. We keep them locked and we don't look forward to a legal battle, but we're ready if they want to check our ballots. Election officials say they've rejected more than 200 provisional ballots [8:27] cast by students at Jackson State University because either the student wasn't registered to vote or went to the wrong precinct. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is in your county. Have you seen any similar issues? Our county is very small in the junior college atmosphere. I have not seen any on that level. But there is people that I know moved to George County and never registered to vote that cast a ballot. Unfortunately, those ballots won't count because they're not a registered voter in George County. [8:58] The majority of our ballot ballot are counted. I'd probably say 75, 66, 75 percent of our affidavit ballots are counted. You are very familiar with Mississippi politics. This is a [9:32] is an extremely close race in a deep red state. Why do you think this race is so competitive? [9:40] Well, I think that the Democratic Party, Scott Column, ran a really good race, [9:47] and that gives him some advantage points there. I think that the current gas prices and economic [9:56] times probably swayed a small portion of voters that are independent up the line between Democrats. [10:03] And when you take a race that everybody knew was going to be tight to start with, [10:09] those few votes there is where we're looking at. Those put you a couple thousand votes ahead. [10:15] And I think that's where Scott's at. And I think that's probably the trend that'll stay from here [10:22] on out, in my personal opinion. You think he will end up being the winner? [10:28] I think so. Most times affidavit ballots, absentee ballots, they all follow the same path [10:36] as election day ballots. I know in our affidavit ballot count, it was almost the exact same [10:42] percentages as the election day ballots cast. And I think that'll follow for the most part [10:46] throughout the other counties as they process these affidavit ballots. Because when they process them, [10:51] they don't open the ballot and see who they voted for. They're just looking at the facts. [10:55] And once they determine accepted or rejected, then they go to a process of being counted. So [11:01] you can't tell who people are voting for. You're totally relying on the facts of that individual [11:07] voter. And is he eligible to cast a ballot? Before we let you go, I wanted to just get your [11:12] reaction to this. I think that's really important, given your position in the elections here in [11:16] Mississippi. Just this morning, President Trump posted this on his social media account. Quote, [11:21] does anybody really believe this election was honest? How could the polls be so wrong? He goes on to say, [11:27] quote, it's all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter. What is your [11:33] response to that, especially as your state is still counting? Yeah, in George County, and I can [11:41] speak for George County personally, we didn't have lines. We had enough equipment and enough ballots [11:47] for the voters to vote. Maybe eight minutes, nine minutes would probably be a long wait in George [11:53] County. I know there's other counties that had longer lines. I think that the turnout was more than [11:59] maybe some predicted, maybe not enough machines there. But we learn from every election and we [12:07] look forward to moving to the next one and being better. And I tell, you know, all my poll workers, [12:13] every election, you should be better than the election before. But what do you think about him [12:18] casting doubts about the election results? I mean, you have a front row seat to it there. [12:26] I know all the election commissioners and circuit clerks and deputy clerks in the state of Mississippi. [12:30] I've served as our president's association. And I truly believe that our ballots are cast legally. [12:39] I think it's done professionally. And I think when the total is announced, we'll have a winner. [12:46] And I truly believe that is the will of the people of Mississippi that cast ballots. [12:53] Chad Welford, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. [12:56] Joining me right now for a sense of what's happening on the ground is Ashton Pittman. He's the news editor [13:00] for the Mississippi Free Press. Ashton, thanks for jumping on. What is the latest, you know, [13:05] on the ground in Mississippi? What are you hearing from officials? What are you hearing from voters? [13:12] So we're hearing from officials that there are just under 3,000 absentee mail ballots still out [13:19] that could still come in within the five-day window and be counted. We're also, you know, [13:25] hearing a lot from voters who have, you know, who had to vote affidavit, which means they had to cast [13:32] what's known in other states as a provisional ballot because of being listed as inactive, [13:38] whether because of an address issue or because they didn't have a photo ID on it at the time [13:44] of going to the polls. We also know that counties are counting at different paces. We have some counties [13:49] that had their affidavit ballots counted last week, and we have some that are still counting [13:54] and have not released a single number. Hines County, the largest county, which is where the [13:59] capital city of Jackson is, still has not released any numbers from their affidavit ballots, and we're [14:03] expecting thousands to come in from Hines County, which is one that heavily favors Scott Cologne. [14:09] So that's definitely something we keep keeping on. What is the talk right now around any possible [14:15] challenges to the eventual outcome? Yeah, so far there, there's just, there's, you know, [14:24] people have kind of gestured at that possibility, but there's, there have not been any, you know, [14:29] really definitive statements that we are going to challenge it. There's just kind of generally, [14:33] you know, we had the, the city had Smith campaign, you know, kind of, you know, talked about, [14:39] kind of referenced the idea of, you know, we're going to accept like, you know, all legally cast [14:45] ballots. We want to make sure all legally cast ballots are counted. [14:47] So there, there's been some gesturing at the idea, but there is no solid, you know, [14:53] we're going to sue for, you know, this particular reason. There have been concerns over, over [14:58] Hidesmith and the Republicans, you know, pushing election commissioners to retain their provisional [15:07] ballots, which is affidavit ballots. There's concern that because affidavit ballots have the name of the [15:13] voter on them, which is the point of that is to be able to verify that they're indeed a voter and [15:18] it's a legal ballot. There's concern that, you know, asking them to retain that could expose these [15:23] ballots to, to potentially, you know, being able to identify who, you know, who specifically voted [15:29] for a candidate. So there are concerns about that. The NAACP has raised concerns, but there's no, [15:33] there's been no specific, you know, threat of a legal challenge so far. Yeah, progress definitely [15:39] being made, but there's still a lot up in the air right now. It is good and how this is all [15:45] going to shake out. Ashton, thank you so much for coming on.