By Samuel Mattison
Alabama Political Reporter
GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore is not ready to call the race for his opponent Doug Jones yet and has even established a fund to pay for collecting information regarding voter fraud committed during the election.
Moore lost the Senate election Tuesday after his opponent received more than 20,000 votes in a Democratic victory that sent shock waves around the country. Despite the large deficit, Moore did not concede the defeat on Tuesday night and has now alleged that voter fraud took place during the election.
The Moore campaign, in a series of emails over the weekend, said they have received “numerous reports of fraud,” and they were gathering the information to send it to the Secretary of State’s Office to be investigated.
In a Sunday email, the Moore campaign asks for monetary donations to carry out the process of gathering reports of voter fraud.
The Alabama Political Reporter reached out to the Secretary of State’s Office through an email on Saturday about reported cases of voter fraud during the election but has yet to receive a comment.
Moore has not conceded the election on the grounds that the Secretary of State’s Office has yet to certify the results. According to the Administrative Calendar set by the office, Jan. 3, 2018, would be the final day that the election results could be certified.
Secretary of State John Merrill said that he didn’t believe the results would affect the election much on the eve of the election adding that the “people of Alabama have spoken.”
While most of the votes have been counted, provisional and military ballots have yet to be counted in the race.
If the votes put Moore within a .5 percent deficit to Jones, there will be an automatic recount paid for by the state. In any other case, the Moore campaign will have to pay for a recount.
Most news organizations, including APR, have called the race for Jones due to the unlikely nature that military and provisional ballots will make up the difference between the two candidates.
While Moore is not conceding the election, many around him have accepted the loss in the Senate election.
President Donald Trump called on Moore to concede through his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, last week.
Trump, who had endorsed Moore a week before the election, also tweeted that he didn’t believe the former state Supreme Court chief justice could win the general election, and even implied he wasn’t a “great candidate.”
The Alabama Republican Party also conceded on election night in a statement that warned Jones to remember his promise to talk about “kitchen table issues.” Steve Bannon, a Moore supporter and executive chair of the conservative website, Breitbart News, also conceded the election Tuesday.
Moore has set Dec. 27, 2017 as the deadline to raise funds to investigate the reports of voter fraud his campaign received.
