Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has launched an investigation into voter fraud accusations from last week’s Senate special election in which Democrat Doug Jones was declared the winner over his Republican opponent, embattled Judge Roy Moore. Moore has yet to officially concede.
The investigation was triggered by a viral video of a Jones supporter telling Fox10 reporter Kati Weis that he and others had traveled “from different parts of the country” to “vote” for their candidate, Jones.
“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!” said the unidentified man.
Speaking to Fox10, Merrill said the clip was “very disconcerting,” adding that his team is working to identify the man in the video.
“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,” he said.
The secretary of state said he’s received “hundreds” of emails inquiring about the video.
“I’ve gotta do everything I possibly can to try and find this kid and figure out: Was he just exuberant in his expression? Was he overly enthusiastic about what was going on?” Merrill said. “Those things make perfect sense to me. He’s a kid, probably never been on TV before. If he had, he probably hadn’t been on more than a couple of times, probably never been on TV in a situation that was that intense with that much going on.”
Since Alabama has a voter ID law, Merrill noted that it’s unlikely there was fraud.
“Moore still has not officially conceded the election and in a fundraising email on Saturday said his campaign was investigating reports of voter fraud,” reports The Huffington Post.
Alabama Senate special election results must be certified by the third of next month.
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