An Alabama judge on Thursday denied an effort by the defeated Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to block the state from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the special election held earlier this month, The Associated Press reported.

Alabama state officials certified Jones, the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama since 1992, as the winner Thursday afternoon.


Earlier in the day, Moore had filed a lawsuit attempting to block state officials from declaring Jones the official victor in Alabama’s Senate special election, instead demanding an investigation into alleged voter fraud.

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

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“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 seeking a delay in the certification of Jones as the winner, also sought a fraud investigation and a redo of the election.

Sam Coleman, a spokesman for Jones, said in a statement Thursday: “This desperate attempt by Roy Moore to subvert the will of the people will not succeed. The election is over, it’s time to move on.”


Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican who had said before the election that he would vote for Moore, told the AP that his office had no evidence of voter fraud but would look into any that Moore submitted. 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 justice of the Alabama 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 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.


Daniel Strauss contributed to this report.

