Former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore still won’t accept the outcome of his stunning defeat in the deep red state earlier this month.
His latest excuse for refusing to concede? Election fraud.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Sen.-elect Doug Jones (D-AL) beat Moore in the state’s special election by 1.5 percentage points, but since then Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court Justice who was removed from the bench twice for controversial behavior, has refused to back down, despite calls from the President to concede. Moore has claimed that provisional and military ballots could still swing the race in his favor.
Late Wednesday evening, the embattled candidate filed a lawsuit in an Alabama Circuit Court to try to block the state canvassing board from officially declaring Jones the winner, which it is set to do Thursday. Moore’s complaint alleges that there were enough irregularities in 20 precincts in just one Alabama county — Jefferson County — to reverse the outcome of the election, according to the 27-page complaint.
In those precincts, Moore claims there was an “enormous, implausible drop-off” in the votes reported for Moore “relative to the votes for the Republican party,” which Moore complains, among other things, is indicative of election fraud.
Moore also claims, based on the signed affidavit of a single poll worker named Sally Finney, that there was an “unusual, unexplained pattern” of voters having out-of-state driver’s licenses at one particular polling place. The complaint also alleges that Highway 31, a Democrat-backed super PAC, practiced “voter intimidation” tactics in its pro-Jones advertisements.
Moore said his campaign has worked with three “national Election Integrity experts” who have all independently concluded that “election fraud occurred,” according to a statement from the campaign shared with TPM. Those “experts” are election fraud author Richard Charnin, electrical engineer Phil Evans and James Condit, who has “special knowledge” in elections and the “methodology of voting machines,” according to their signed affidavits.
“This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone,” Moore said in the statement shared with TPM. “We call on Secretary of State (John) Merrill to delay certification until there is a thorough investigation of what three independent election experts agree took place: election fraud sufficient to overturn the outcome of the election.”
However, Merrill told The Associated Press that he isn’t planning to delay the canvassing board meeting and said he has not yet found any evidence of election fraud. He told the AP that his office will investigate any complaint that Moore submits.
“It is not going to delay certification and Doug Jones will be certified (Thursday) at 1 p.m. and he will be sworn in by Vice President Pence on the third of January,” Merrill told the AP Wednesday evening.
Moore’s upset came after weeks of national news coverage of past controversial comments and mounting allegations of sexual misconduct. Multiple women came forward alleging Moore either pursued relationships or made inappropriate sexual advances toward them when they were teens and he was in his 30s.
Read the complaint below:
