Five days after Mississippians went to the polls, nobody knows who won the state's U.S. Senate race — and the machinery that's supposed to deliver that answer is still grinding through mail-in envelopes and affidavit ballots at a pace that would embarrass a DMV.

Democrat Scott Colom leads Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,574 votes out of nearly 1 million cast, according to Fox News. But the race remains too early for the Associated Press to call, and the final outcome hinges on a tedious county-by-county process that won't conclude until next week at the earliest. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Friday there are just over 3,000 mail-in ballots still awaiting processing. Under state law, those ballots can be counted as long as they arrive by Nov. 10 — five business days after Election Day — provided they were postmarked in time. An unknown number of provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots in Mississippi, also remain. The Colom campaign estimates up to 15,000 could be outstanding; the precise number is not publicly known.

This is the part that should concern every American who wants to trust elections: Mississippi builds a five-day landing window into its vote count. Ballots cast by people whose eligibility couldn't be verified at the polls are set aside for individual review. Citizens with identification discrepancies have until Tuesday to resolve them in person. Counties don't certify complete results to the secretary of state until Friday. Mississippi law has no provision for a statewide recount; campaigns would need court orders, usually at the county level, to challenge results.

Add it up, and a race decided by roughly two-tenths of a percent stays in limbo for a week-plus after Election Day. This follows Maryland's mail-in ballot flips and Georgia's memory card errors earlier this cycle. The pattern is plain: the longer the count stretches, the more room there is for error, dispute, and erosion of public confidence in the result — whichever way it breaks.

The Chicago Tribune framed the slow count as a march toward "Senate history," devoting its coverage to the possibility that Colom would become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. One supporter called him "our messiah, our savior." That framing buries the administrative question ordinary Americans are asking: why does this take this long?

Colom expressed confidence Friday, telling reporters that "everybody who knows the math, it's going in our direction." He also criticized Hyde-Smith for not publicly explaining her path forward. "She's still our senator. Where is she?" he asked.

Hyde-Smith has not held a public appearance since election night, when she essentially declared victory despite the razor-thin margin. Her campaign released a statement Friday: "We are not backing down. This election is not over. Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!"

Fox News noted that most election forecasters had rated the contest solid or likely Republican; the final poll showed Colom trailing by just three points, within the margin of error, and proved far more accurate than the prognosticators.

Should Colom prevail, he would be the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi elected by popular vote. The state's two previous Black senators were chosen by the state legislature before the 17th Amendment established direct election in 1913.

The broader Senate picture: Democrats and independents who caucus with them have secured 54 seats and could reach 56 depending on outcomes in Mississippi and Alaska, according to Fox News.

But the machinery question doesn't care about party. A system that takes a week to count a million votes in one state — and can't tell you how many ballots remain — is a system that invites doubt. Mississippi's lawmakers wrote these rules. Mississippi's officials are executing them. The question is whether anyone in power has an incentive to fix them.