There are some on social media calling on the GOP to replace Roy Moore on the ballot following a bombshell report that he sexually assaulted a teenager in 1979. Here’s the thing. They can’t. There’s nothing they or anyone can do to remove Roy Moore from the ballot as the Republican nominee.

Background

Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32 Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore. Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore. It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing.

“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’ ” says Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”

Stuck there

Alabama law requires names be withdrawn from a ballot at least 76 days before election day. The special election is scheduled for December 12. The GOP can withdraw his nomination, but that would only mean he couldn’t win. His name will still represent the party on the ballot.

They only have three choices:

Stick with Moore and hope the allegations are debunked Push Luther Strange or someone else as a write-in candidate Abandon the seat to the Democrats

None of the options are great for Republicans. Currently, they have a razor-thin edge in the Senate with 52 seats. Losing the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and currently occupied by Strange would leave no room for error if they intend to pass anything before 2019.