A Question About the 2003 MS State Auditor election...

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

I was browsing Mississippi election results, and I noticed that in the 2003 State Auditor election, Phil Bryant managed to get over 90% of the vote in two majority-black Delta counties (Bolivar and Coahoma), even getting nearly 98% in Bolivar. how is this possible? is this an error?

Also, why was Bryant especially popular/well liked in those two majority-black counties but not necessarily in others, considering he got a far lower share of the vote in counties like Holmes, Claiborne, Jefferson, Noxubee, etc.

Lastly, does anyone have any guesses as to what percentage of the black vote Bryant got statewide in this election?

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

The most likely reason is that a lot of black voters left the ballot blank in those counties in that race because there was no Democrat (only a Reform candidate).

Just using one of your examples, Bryant only got 48 votes more than Barbour did in Bolivar County. Keep in mind that Barbour only got 35.1% of the vote in Bolivar. It's a similar story in Coahoma, where Bryant only had 41 votes more than Barbour (who had 36.5% in that county).

This isn't actually particularly unusual behavior in the Black Belt either. In 2014's Senate race in neighboring Alabama, Jeff Sessions was uncontested, resulting in him getting 90%+ of the vote in nearly the entire Black Belt. However, when you include blank ballots, you notice how most of the Black Belt simply left their ballots blank:

According to the Atlas, Bryant's opponent was a Democrat, but it does appear turnout was way down in certain counties... which leads to the question of why that was, considering Bryant wasn't running against a third party candidate.