Story highlights
Alabama Secretary of State is slated to certify special election results Thursday
Moore and his campaign calling for "a new special election"
An Alabama judge denied an election complaint from Roy Moore on Thursday, moments before the state was due to certify the victory of Democrat Doug Jones.
Moore filed an election complaint on Wednesday, alleging potential voter fraud in Alabama’s special election and urged a delay in certifying the results.
Alabama Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick denied Moore’s attempt to halt the certification of the results from the special election held on December 12 for the vacant Senate seat in Alabama.
Moore, a Republican, has refused to concede after losing the Senate race on December 12 to Jones by more than 20,000 votes.
In its last-minute court battle to stop state officials from certifying Jones as the winner, the Moore campaign said certification should be delayed until a “thorough investigation of potential election fraud,” according to a press release.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, however, told CNN’s “New Day” Thursday morning that he will certify Jones as the winner later in the day.
“Will this affect anything?” Merrill said, referring to Moore’s challenge. “The short answer to that is no.”
Previously, Merrill has said it is “highly unlikely” that Jones would not be certified as the winner of the election.
Jones’ campaign called Moore’s challenge a “desperate attempt” to “subvert the will of the people.”
Moore and his campaign filed the complaint in the Circuit Court of Montgomery, Alabama, listing several allegations and called for “a new special election.”
His complaint alleged that out-of-state residents had been allowed to vote and that election fraud experts had concluded through statistical analyses that fraud had taken place. One of the election experts Moore cites is Richard Charnin, who also posts about JFK conspiracy theories and the murder of DNC staffer, Seth Rich.
Moore’s complaint also alleged “anomalous” higher voter turnout in Jefferson County, in which census data shows 43% of the population is black. He called the county’s 47% voter turnout as “highly unusual” and questioned the integrity of its election results.
Jones is the first Democrat in a generation to win a Senate seat in Alabama, beating Moore amid a firestorm of allegations that the GOP candidate had sexually abused teens.
In his election complaint, Moore stated that he took a polygraph test over the sexual misconduct allegations made against him by Leigh Corfman, Beverly Nelson and Tina Johnson. Moore says that he took the polygraph test after the December 12 election, according to his affidavit, included in the complaint.
In the affidavit Moore states, “the results of the examination reflected that I did not know, nor had I ever had any sexual contact with any of these individuals.”
He called the allegations “false and malicious attacks on my character.”
In a press release, Moore implored supporters to call state officials to delay certifying the results.
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher, Jason Morris, Kaitlan Collins, Faith Holland, Aaron Cooper and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
