Alabama election official skeptical that outstanding ballots will tip Senate seat to Roy Moore

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Unedited video of Roy Moore’s speech to his supporters after his opponent, Doug Jones, declared victory.
Wochit

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s secretary of state questioned Wednesday whether provisional or military ballots would alter the results of Tuesday’s Senate special election.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the GOP nominee, refused to concede after the votes were counted early Wednesday. In unofficial returns, Jones had received more than 671,000 votes, 49.9% of the total; Moore had received more than 650,000 votes, 48.9% of the vote; the remainder were for various write-in candidates.

“A lot of votes are in, but they’re not all in yet,” Bill Armistead, Moore’s campaign chairman, told supporters late Tuesday after The Associated Press called the election for Democratic nominee Doug Jones. “There’s a law in Alabama that requires a recount if the vote is one half of one percent.”

It was not immediately clear Wednesday if Moore could request a recount at the current margins. State law allows candidates to challenge recounts outside the automatic trigger if they are willing to pay the costs.

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“I don’t know how many ballots are going to be returned from overseas voters or how many provisional ballots there are, but I’m confident not all of them are going to be for one candidate,” Secretary of State John Merrill said. 

Merrill suggested in interviews that Moore have pay for a recount himself, an expensive option. But election law expert Rick Hasen at the University of California, Irvine, noted in a post late Tuesday that Alabama law appears to cover only statewide offices, not federal ones. 

“If we need advice or counsel on this matter, we’ll be seeking it from attorneys and judges in the state of Alabama, not attorneys and judges in the state of California,” Merrill said.

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More than 1.3 million ballots were cast in the special election, a 40% turnout that blasted through earlier estimates of 25%. Nearly 23,000 write-in ballots — more than Jones’ unofficial margin — also were cast. 

“We’ve never had a special election like this,” Merrill said. “This is a record for this kind of special election.”

Follow Brian Lyman on Twitter: @lyman_brian

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