NATCHEZ — The only Senate race left to be determined in Mississippi hangs on Adams County’s absentee ballots.

The race, in which incumbent District 37 Sen. Melanie Sojourner, R-Natchez, faces a challenge from the man she unseated four years ago, remained too close to call Wednesday. Sojourner holds a 81-vote lead over Bob Dearing, D-Natchez.

The three other counties in the district — Amite, Franklin and Pike — have already counted their absentee ballots and included those numbers in the unofficial totals reported to the state. Affidavit ballots in Amite and Franklin counties still have to be counted.

Sojourner currently has 8,038 votes, while Dearing has 7,957.

Adams County had a total of 402 absentee ballots, but of those, only 282 fell within District 37.

Adams County Election Commissioner Larry Gardner said the election commission spent Wednesday canvassing precincts and making sure all the absentee and affidavit ballots were in order.

Once that was done, the absentee and affidavit ballots would be fed into an optical scanner for counting. Scanning should start Thursday morning, Gardner said.

Any ballots that are rejected by the scanner will have to be reviewed by the resolution board to determine the intent of the voter, he said.

“We hope to get it wrapped up as soon as we can,” he said. “Hopefully we will have some numbers by (Thursday) morning, but we may not because we are meticulous going through those boxes, and we are not going to rush just to get some numbers and maybe miss some affidavit (ballots).”

Dearing carried Adams County with 67 percent of in-person voting. If absentee ballots continued to reflect that trend, even with Sojourner’s current lead, he could just eek out a victory.

“If that trend continues, I can win by 15 or 16 votes,” Dearing said.

If absentee ballots trend like in Pike and Amite counties, however, Sojourner will solidify her victory and return to Jackson in January.

Sojourner said she expects the total number of affidavit ballots in Amite and Franklin to be low, with Amite supporting her and Franklin leaning slightly to Dearing.

Sojourner said the closeness of the race demonstrates why voter turnout is important.

“I think this was one of those learning experiences for voters about getting out and engaging the process,” she said. “This is one of those races where you had two candidates that were almost opposite on every issue.”

Sojourner said she was pleased with those who went to the polls and those who worked support her campaign.

“They worked really hard, and I think the numbers broke down a lot like we expected. We had really great percentages in Pike and Amite, and the opposite in Adams like it was four years ago.”

Dearing also said he was disappointed by the total turnout, which in Adams County came to approximately 37 percent. Dearing said he believed the lack of county-level races on the ballot probably contributed to the low numbers.

“It is hard to get folks to get back out (in a general election),” he said. “I thought Initiative 42 brought some people out that might not have normally come back, but if it had been a 45 percent turnout, I wouldn’t even be sweating it.”