There is a late entry in the competition for 2017’s Most Inevitable News Story, and it’s a formidable one, indeed. It was submitted to The Committee by the good folks at Fox10 in Pensacola.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is investigating a concern over potential voter fraud in last Tuesday's special Senate election. It all stems from a brief interview FOX10 News Reporter Kati Weis conducted at the Doug Jones victory party on election night when a young man made a comment that has now gone viral on social media. The interview took place just minutes after the race had been called. While live on air, in the middle of the crowded party, Kati walked up to a number of jubilant supporters at random, asking them for their reactions to the big win.

That’s not the sweetest part of this fruitcake, though.

But, it was this question and answer that has caused controversy: "Kati: Why are you excited to see this victory? Man: Because, we came here all the way from different parts of the country as part of our fellowship, and all of us pitched in to vote and canvas together, and we got our boy elected!"

It was no secret that people came to Alabama from all over the country, doing the sleeping-on-the-floor, ramen-noodles-for-breakfast bit, and canvassing their itinerant hearts out for Doug Jones. Everybody knew it. Hell, Roy Moore never shut up about it, and neither did such staunch sons of Alabama as Steve Bannon of Hollywood and the Hamptons, and Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee.

But, on election night, those of us who watched Alabama’s Secretary of State, a Moore supporter named John Merrill, as he discussed the upset like a man eating a porcupine raw knew something like this was coming.

"Well, it's very disconcerting when someone who's not from Alabama says that they participated in our election, so now it's incumbent upon us to try to identify this young man, to see what kind of role he played, if it was to simply play a canvassing roll, or if he was part of a process that went out and tried to register voters, or if he himself actually became a registered voter," said Merrill. Merrill said, so far, there is no concrete evidence that any voter fraud has taken place.

"We don't have any evidence of people doing that, our numbers do not indicate that has happened, but when you have someone actually recorded on television saying that they voted, and that's what he said, then we've got to get to the bottom of that," said Merrill. The Secretary of State's Office also said voter fraud would be unlikely because every voter is required to show a government photo identification card before casting a vote. "We have one of the most stringent voting laws in the nation," said Merrill.

Translation from the original WeaselSpeak: We-all in Alabama know how to suppress votes, and we’re better at it than most places. Cain’t quite figger out how this happened

(I would remind you that Merrill was the guy who said that making voting more convenient would “cheapen” the cause for which John Lewis and the rest of them got beat up in Selma. For sheer, clanging brass ones, it’s hard to top that.)



Chances are this will come to nothing, but, if we’ve learned nothing else this year, “chances are” is a phrase best left to Johnny Mathis. In the United States of 2017, every day is Anything Can Happen Day.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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