After an unbelievable Democratic victory in the Alabama Senate race earlier this month, the state of Alabama officially confirmed Doug Jones’s victory Thursday, giving Congress the green light to seat him in the new year.
It’s official: Alabama is sending Doug Jones to the Senate (over Roy Moore’s protests)
Roy Moore’s last-ditch failed attempt to stop Doug Jones from becoming senator, explained.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
His opponent, Republican Roy Moore, still won’t believe it.
Moore did not concede the special election, which took place on December 12, and made a last-ditch effort to call for a new Senate election this week. He filed a legal complaint in state court Wednesday night, making claims of “election fraud,” and urging the state not to confirm Jones’s victory.
But Alabama’s Republican leaders continued as scheduled, certifying the votes to give Democrats the win Thursday. A state judge denied Moore’s request to stop the process.
“We will sign the documents certifying him as the senator for the state of Alabama,” Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said on CNN this morning.
While ultimately unsuccessful, Moore’s efforts to cast doubt over the election process took a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook. Trump repeatedly sounded the alarm bells over “large-scale voter fraud” before the 2016 election without any evidence — even later making the baseless claim that he lost the popular vote due to millions of illegal votes.
The controversial Republican candidate — who has been accused of multiple instances of inappropriate sexual behavior with teenage girls, one as young as 14, when he was in 30s, and who has questioned whether Muslims should be allowed to serve in Congress, and stated homosexuality should be illegal — cited in his complaint already investigated and discredited rumors of voter fraud, and questioned the likelihood of Democratic turnout in what turned became key districts for Jones.
“The reported results were contrary to most of the impartial, independent polls conducted prior to the Special Election and in contrast to exit polls,” the complaint states. Preelection polls and exit polls, are, of course, only a snapshot of an electorate, and not a full-proof representation of election day results.
Moore went on to:
- Question the transparency of the Alabama secretary of state’s investigation into rumored voter fraud attempts.
- Argue that there is an “implausible, unexplained 35 percent drop in votes for Roy Moore relative to the vote share of Republican Party straight-line votes” in the state’s most dense counties, attempting to raise questions about black voter turnout.
- Cite four election “experts,” including Richard Charnin, who has a blog dedicated conspiracy theories, and James Condit Jr., who has propagated conspiracies about Jewish people taking over the Vatican.
Moore also included a signed affidavit attesting that he took a lie-detector test after the election to prove he did not sexually assault the women who have come forward with allegations against him.
His refusal to concede isn’t particularly surprising. The night of the election, Moore, who lost the election by roughly 20,000 votes — which was not close enough to trigger an automatic recount — told his supporters “when the vote is this close that it’s not over,” invoking God to “let this process play out.”
