{"id":55638,"date":"2017-12-29T04:32:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T04:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=55638"},"modified":"2017-12-29T04:32:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T04:32:57","slug":"alabama-certifies-jones-win-brushing-aside-challenge-from-roy-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/alabama-certifies-jones-win-brushing-aside-challenge-from-roy-moore.html","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Certifies Jones Win, Brushing Aside Challenge From Roy Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alabama Certifies Jones Win, Brushing Aside Challenge From Roy Moore<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Alabama officials on Thursday unhesitatingly pushed aside a legal challenge from Roy S. Moore and certified Doug Jones as the winner of this month\u2019s Senate election.<\/span><\/p>\n

The action, during a brief meeting at the State Capitol, was essentially the state\u2019s final step before the seating of the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama in a quarter century. It was also a swift rejection, by some of the state\u2019s most powerful Republicans, of Mr. Moore\u2019s complaint that he was the victim of \u201csystematic voter fraud.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Jones\u2019s margin of victory was 21,924 votes, with more than 1.3 million ballots cast.<\/span><\/p>\n

The certification leaves Mr. Moore, 70, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court whose campaign faltered partly because of allegations of sexual misconduct against teenage girls, with almost no avenues to derail Mr. Jones\u2019s ascension to the Senate. The election aftermath followed a familiar pattern for Mr. Moore, who in the past has been eager to declare victories and pronounce grievances \u2014 but unwilling to concede defeats.<\/span><\/p>\n

To this day, Republicans note, Mr. Moore has not conceded his losses in the 2006 or 2010 Republican primaries for governor, and there is already speculation in Montgomery that he might run for governor or attorney general next year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou win with class, you lose with class, and he just can\u2019t do it,\u201d Angi Horn Stalnaker, a Republican strategist who ran campaigns, with mixed success, against Mr. Moore, said acidly.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, Mr. Moore seemed to come close to acknowledging his loss. \u201cI have stood for the truth about God and the Constitution for the people of Alabama,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cI have no regrets. To God be the glory.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the results of the Dec. 12 special election were certified, and in the candidate\u2019s statement afterward, Mr. Moore and his campaign left little doubt about their assessment of the vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed in a state court late Wednesday, Mr. Moore, who denied the allegations of sexual impropriety, complained that pervasive fraud had tainted the election, and that the Alabama authorities had inadequately investigated potential misconduct.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mr. Moore found himself aligned against Democrats and Republicans alike. Secretary of State John H. Merrill, a Republican who voted for Mr. Moore, said he had found no evidence of endemic fraud and refused to postpone the certification. Judge Johnny Hardwick of Montgomery County Circuit Court, citing a lack of jurisdiction, dismissed Mr. Moore\u2019s complaint minutes before the vote was certified.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Jones, whose transition team had called the lawsuit \u201ca desperate attempt by Roy Moore to subvert the will of the people,\u201d said in a statement that his victory \u201cmarks a new chapter for our state and the nation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the state ultimately certified the results, Mr. Moore\u2019s litigation infused a strain of drama into a day that Alabama officials had hoped would be procedural and perfunctory. Mr. Moore\u2019s lawsuit was late in coming: His lawyers filed their lawsuit at 10:33 p.m. on Wednesday. .<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the complaint by Mr. Moore, a figure with a penchant for last-minute legal theatrics, was not altogether surprising. He and his allies have spent the last several weeks signaling their unease with the voting process, and, while saying little else publicly, Mr. Moore solicited contributions for an \u201celection integrity fund.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Until Wednesday night, it was not clear what would come of his efforts. Then, in a court filing that ran for dozens of pages, Mr. Moore argued that returns in the state\u2019s most populous county \u201cconfirmed election fraud.\u201d It also said that turnout in the county was suspiciously high; it suggested that Mr. Jones had benefited from voter intimidation; and it argued that Mr. Moore\u2019s opponents had spread \u201clies and fraudulent misrepresentations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To support his arguments, Mr. Moore included affidavits from several people his campaign described as experts in elections; one has claimed to have \u201cmathematically proved a conspiracy to assassinate\u201d President John F. Kennedy. (Mr. Moore has himself indulged in conspiracy theories, including that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Experts unaffiliated with either the Jones or Moore campaigns quickly said the lawsuit\u2019s arguments appeared meritless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to boil down to: I should have won under the exit poll and all of this voting by African-Americans must show fraud,\u201d Richard L. Hasen, an elections law expert at the University of California, Irvine, wrote on his blog.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Alabama Republican Party, and many elected officials, stood behind Mr. Moore during his campaign, he had few influential allies by the time the certification meeting began at the Capitol. Party leaders, including President Trump, who endorsed Mr. Moore, had called for him to concede.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Moore could conceivably ask the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to serve as \u201cjudge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members,\u201d not to seat Mr. Jones. Republican leaders in Washington are unlikely to heed any such call.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the final tally reflects Mr. Moore\u2019s enduring appeal to many Republicans here, and Mr. Moore\u2019s strength, diminished as it is, has fueled speculation about whether he will unsettle the state\u2019s politics next year.<\/span><\/p>\n

A campaign for either governor or attorney general would involve challenging a Republican incumbent and would test just how weary and wary the party is of Mr. Moore.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn paper, he would be competitive in a Republican primary,\u201d said State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Republican who supported Mr. Moore in the Senate election and is himself considering a run for governor. \u201cBut the campaign is not won or lost on paper, just like a football game. On paper, Alabama was going to beat Auburn, and it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The political math for Mr. Moore is certainly more complicated than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was twice elected \u2014 and effectively twice removed \u2014 as chief justice, and he would enter any 2018 race with some of the advantages that can come with decades in public life: name recognition and, likely, the sustained fealty of the devoted supporters who helped him earn more than 650,000 votes on Dec. 12.<\/span><\/p>\n

But before the Senate race, many of Mr. Moore\u2019s critics regarded him as bigot and a demagogue who cheered discrimination against gay people and Muslims. After the campaign, some of his critics also saw him as a predator toward younger women. And the coalition that sunk Mr. Moore\u2019s campaign \u2014 young people, women and black voters in major cities and rural counties \u2014 has not gone away.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Mr. Moore harbors any ambitions of moving into the neoclassical Governor\u2019s Mansion, he will have to act on them quickly: The deadline for declaring a statewide candidacy is Feb. 9.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several of Mr. Moore\u2019s advisers, including his campaign\u2019s chairman and treasurer, did not respond to messages this week. But a former chief of staff to Mr. Moore, Ben Dupr\u00e9, said that Mr. Moore is \u201ca guy that does not compromise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t take his orders from the Republican Party or the Democrat Party,\u201d said Mr. Dupr\u00e9, who sometimes spoke for Mr. Moore during the campaign but ended his role soon after the election. \u201cHe really believes in following the Constitution and in following God and in following what he believes is his duty to God and to the country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Dupr\u00e9 added, \u201cIf he has a reason not to concede, he\u2019s not going to concede. He\u2019s got no friends in D.C. \u2014 we know that, we knew that going into this \u2014 and he\u2019s not trying to play their game of, \u2018Oh, we smeared your reputation, so you should roll over and go away.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Dupr\u00e9, who spoke hours before Mr. Moore brought his lawsuit, may have a point.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Mr. Moore faltered in 2006, a political scientist predicted to an Alabama newspaper that it would be \u201cvery hard for him to come back and be a major force in Alabama politics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Less than seven years later, Mr. Moore, already ousted once from the Supreme Court, was elected chief justice \u2014 again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/28\/us\/politics\/roy-moore-block-election.html<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t