Final US Senate Seats Delayed by Ballot Tallies in Mississippi and Alaska

Two US Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska remain uncalled following the midterm elections, leaving the exact size of the incoming Democratic Senate majority unresolved. While Democrats have secured control of both congressional chambers and at least 54 Senate seats for the 120th Congress opening on January 3, ongoing ballot processing in both states continues to delay final results.

In Alaska, Democratic candidate Mary Peltola holds a lead of 637 votes over incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, according to tally updates from The Associated Press with nearly a quarter of votes remaining uncounted. State election officials are applying Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, which requires candidates to secure over 50 percent of first-choice votes to win outright or face successive rounds of voter preference redistribution. Alaska's Division of Elections announced that the final ranked-choice tally will be published on November 18.

The Alaskan contest has also been affected by a legal challenge surrounding two candidates with identical names on the ballot: incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher. The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking to halt election certification on grounds of potential voter confusion, but a federal judge dismissed the filing on Sunday. Department of Justice officials stated that the agency intends to appeal the decision.

In Mississippi, Democratic challenger Scott Colom leads incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,138 votes with approximately 96 percent of ballots counted, according to data from The Associated Press. Both candidates currently hold roughly 49 percent of the vote in a state that last elected a Democrat to statewide office in 2015. State election law allows local authorities ten days from election day to process affidavit ballots and five business days to process postmarked mail-in votes.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson stated on Wednesday that approximately 3,600 mail-in ballots remain to be counted alongside an unconfirmed number of affidavit votes. Watson confirmed that county election officials have until November 13 to submit their certified vote totals to the state office. Under Mississippi law, no automatic recount mechanism exists, meaning candidates must obtain a court order to mandate a secondary tally.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com