Moore files lawsuit

Roy Moore files lawsuit to block Alabama Senate result, seeks new election

By LOUIS NELSON

Attorneys for defeated Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore filed a lawsuit Wednesday to block the state from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the special election held earlier this month, the Associated Press reported.

Jones defeated Moore in the Dec. 12 election by slightly less than 21,000 votes, a margin of 1.5 percent, but Moore has yet to concede the race. He has continued to fundraise by asking donors to contribute to his “election integrity fund,” pledging to pursue “voter fraud and other irregularities at polling locations throughout the state.”

“This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone,” Moore said in a statement Wednesday announcing the lawsuit, which in addition to delaying the certification of Jones as the winner, also seeks a fraud investigation and a redo of the election.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican who said he would vote for Moore ahead of Election Day earlier this month, told the AP his office has no evidence of voter fraud but will look into any that Moore submits. Still, Merrill said Moore’s lawsuit would not delay Jones’ ascension to the Senate.

“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 said.

Moore, a former chief judge for Alabama’s Supreme Court, was considered a heavy favorite to win the Senate seat in deep-red Alabama after emerging from a GOP primary in which he defeated incumbent Sen. Luther Strange. But allegations that Moore had molested and sexually assaulted girls as young as 14 when he was in his 30s surfaced as he campaigned against Jones, accusations that seemed to flip the race in favor of the Democrat.

Jones’ victory, the first for a Democrat in an Alabama Senate race since 1992, has spurred concern among some in the Republican Party about the possibility of a Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm elections. It has also fueled further the ongoing divisions within the GOP as the party’s wings cast blame toward one another over the loss of the Senate seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.