Photo courtesy of Politico.
Summary: Roy Moore is trying to stop Doug Jones from being certified as the winner of the Alabama Senate election in December.
Late Wednesday, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore filed an official complaint, challenging his loss to Democrat Doug Jones.
Roy Moore was a favorite to win now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ vacated Senate seat in December’s election, but his campaign was marred when multiple women accused him of wanting to date or being in relationships with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.
Moore lost the December 12 election to Democrat Doug Jones, but he has refused to concede. According to NBC News, his last-minute court battle’s intention is to block Jones’ win from becoming official.
Moore has denied all of the allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls. One of his accusers Beverly Young Nelson held a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred, and she said that Moore had sexually assaulted her in his car when she was a teenager. Moore claimed to not know her, and she showed a yearbook he had allegedly signed as proof that he did. Moore denied the signing, and Nelson later admitted that she had added to the yearbook but that some part of the signing was real.
In his complaint, Moore said that he had taken a polygraph test to prove he had not conducted sexual misconduct with Leigh Corfman, Beverly Nelson and Tina Johnson.
“As I had expected, the results of the examination reflected that I did not know, nor had I ever had any sexual contact with, any of these individuals,” Moore said.
On Thursday, the Alabama State Canvassing Board was scheduled to meet to certify Jones’ win. However, Moore is seeking a temporary restraining order to postpone the certification. He alleges potential election fraud.
“This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone,” Moore said. “We call on Secretary of State 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, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said on Wednesday that the canvassing meeting has no intention of delaying.
“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 to the Associated Press.
State officials said there was no evidence of voter fraud.
On Thursday, a lawyer for Jones’ campaign filed a motion to dismiss, stating that “there is a lack of subject matter jurisdiction; [the complaint] fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; and/or [it] has no basis in the law.”
“This desperate attempt by Roy Moore to subvert the will of the people will not succeed,” said Sam Coleman. “The election is over, it’s time to move on.”