Moore will not concede.
— Serenity Now! (@Johngcole) December 13, 2017
That’s the sum total of Roy Moore’s lawsuit that was filed to block the certification of Doug Jones:
Republican Roy Moore filed a lawsuit to try to stop Alabama from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the U.S. Senate race.
The court filing occurred about 14 hours ahead of Thursday’s meeting of a state canvassing board to officially declare Jones the winner of the Dec. 12 special election. Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes.
Moore’s attorney wrote in the complaint filed late Wednesday that he believed there were irregularities during the election and said there should be a fraud investigation and eventually a new election.
This is special:
One of the experts Moore cites is Richard Charnin, who says the probability that the election results are accurate is “less than one in 15 billion.” Charnin runs a blog devoted to “JFK conspiracy and systemic election fraud analysis,” and is known for pushing dubious voter-fraud claims, like that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election from John Kerry, Bernie Sanders is the rightful winner of the 2016 Democratic primary, and President Trump actually beat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, not just the Electoral College.
Alabama officials have repeatedly said they found no evidence of voter fraud, and President Trump acknowledged that Moore lost on election night. It’s unclear when a judge will consider Moore’s complaint, but Alabama secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican who voted for Moore, seemed confident that nothing will come of it.
It will be fun watching this unfold because the legal community in Alabama fucking hates Moore.
Raoul
The point of the suit is so that for the duration of Jones’ Senate career, the racist, horrible rump of the GOP (all of ’em, Katie) can say he is ‘illegitimate’ or at least that some cloud of doubt taints his election, and … so he should of course vote for GOP draconian bullshit.
I mean, we’re still getting bullshit about birtherism re: Obama and he’s been retired for a year. They will not let this go. They will also use this to push more voter disenfranchisement in AL and nationwide.
This must be resisted forcefully. Not just mocked. Not just countered with facts (they mean nothing to people with the GOP’s agenda of domination at any cost). They need to be kicked in the teeth. Daily. For this utter bullshit.
Step one: Register as many blah voters as possible, in every state, from now to November.
germy
Baud
Very few people on this planet are worse human beings than Donald Trump. Roy Moore is one of them. I was so happy to hear of Doug Jones’s win when I was away.
Baud
BTW, the news this morning said that Moore took a polygraph test and he said it proved he was telling to the truth about not knowing his accusers. So there!
Jay C
What it sounds like, to me, is that ol’ Roy is trying, via the back door, to get a recount on the State’s dime, rather than his own. (Or is it too late for that?). In any case, given the quality of the “evidence” he’s trying to present, it seems likely that a politer form of “piss off” is going to be his only takeaway….
And I’m sure Moore will be using the “I wuz robbed”/”voter fraud” whine as a fundraising tool from now till ever…
Baud
@germy: I wonder if Putin has contacted Moore yet.
Alain the site fixer
@Baud: glad to see you’re back. Once I get the form working, I hope
you’ll share some pictures and stories!
hedgehog mobile
Christ, what an asshole. Bet you he shows up at the Senate on January 3 and demands to be seated.
BruceFromOhio
Just another stop on Moore’s very own personal Grifter Gravy Train.
“I wuz ROBBED! Send me money now, you racist morons, these cons don’t run themselves!”
Honestly, it’s appropriate Moore continue this grift, as it firmly and forever puts him out of power. If he had conceded and taken the high road, he *might* have been able to retain a shred of dignity and respect, and found a way back into power. Instead he has cemented his fate as a foolish, grasping racist relegated to the sidelines and his cheesy fleece of the rubes.
Cluttered Mind
@hedgehog mobile: He’ll probably show up there on a horse too.
debbie
I love the bit about passing a polygraph proving he didn’t know the women he’s said to have abused. Since when did attackers need to know their victims’ names?
dmsilev
Yes, the renowned Alabama Democrat [sic] political machine intimidated those poor Republicans. Also, I’m sure we’re all eager to learn of the legal theory which bans lies in political campaigns, especially given the current resident of the White House.
hueyplong
This feels mostly like a reminder of just what an awful thing we dodged when Jones beat Moore.
dmsilev
@Cluttered Mind: The horse would have a better claim at being seated, and would undoubtedly make a better Senator.
germy
Obviously This Election is a Fraud Because Blah People Voted
Roger Moore
@Raoul:
I think it’s at least as much to see how long they can delay certification of the election and keep Strange in Washington. Also, too, they can fundraise and use this as an excuse for further draconian voter suppression efforts.
germy
@Roger Moore:
BruceFromOhio
@germy: Translated: We’ve had enough of his bullshit, too.
marcopolo
Good morning folks. This here being an AL Senate race thread, let me recommend this interview between Ezra Klein & Joe Trippi which I read yesterday. Trippi was the campaign’s media strategist & they talk about what Trippi saw voters reacting to during the race, why he thinks Jones won & what he thinks were the major takeaways from the race for Democrats running in 2018. Here is the core of his argument:
And for those with more time, there is a link in the article to the one hour podcast from which the article is quoting.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Just because they say it doesn’t mean it’s true. An injunction could stop the certification.
The Moar You Know
This is true. I suspect when the state tells him to go get bent – which will be fairly quickly – he’s going to try to file some sort of Fed civil rights violation. Given that his party of choice have largely gutted those laws, that may be hilarious, but unfortunately he may be able to draw it out for a while.
Kay
Alabama is both responsible for the Voting Rights Act and responsible for gutting the Voting Rights Act:
Any time you hear a conservative going on and on about the sainted and brilliant Justice Roberts remember that he failed miserably on one of his most important decisions. You only need one mistake if it’s big enough, and gutting the VRA was a big mistake. Put that disaster tops on his legacy list. It was idiotic. Only an absolute clueless privileged moron couldn’t imagine that voter suppression would come roaring back, and come roaring back it did.
Ocotillo
I am surprised the Turtle isn’t willing to delay seating Jones ala Norm Coleman just to keep the others from having that extra vote. He knows Moore will not prevail but it is just his style to wait for the judicial process to work it’s course.
tobie
@marcopolo: Interesting insight. I’ll download the podcast. This matches my own sense of exhaustion at the daily mess-ups, outrages, and violations of basic norms. Glad to hear some Republicans are feeling that way, too.
woodrowfan
@hedgehog mobile: I feel sorry for that poor horse being badly ridden up the Capitol steps.
woodrowfan
@debbie: polygraphs only work if people feel guilty or scared of lying. They don;t work on people, like Moore and drumph, who lie as easily as breathing.
Kay
I’m a little concerned that they’ll start hauling AA voters in for questioning. I’d like to think it won’t happen but I live in a country where they are still investigating Hillary Clinton for Bengazi and emails, so in my opinion all bets are off. Also- Jeff Sessions is the AG so, ya know, no help there.
If there’s some kind of bogus inquiry where they attempt to intimidate AA voters I’d like to see a really robust response – it will have to be donor funded and staffed with private lawyers, ideally Alabama lawyers.
We had real efforts to intimidate AA voters in Ohio in 2012. They went into urban areas and so we had some AA people in positions of power (locally- bds of elections and mayors) who were able to stop them but they got enough traction that they were holding bogus hearings.
MattF
@Baud: In fact, the polygraph refused to touch Moore and then sued for harassment.
sdhays
@Kay: A lot of people say Citizens United was the worst decision by the W-mangled Supreme Court, but the gutting of the VRA is the top one for me. The court made completely spurious justifications for its decision and really assumed more authority for itself than the Constitution conferred.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: You do know, of course, that to a conservative this is the most brilliant decision in the history of modern jurisprudence. Precisely because of the results.
Capri
No too surprising, Moore hasn’t conceded the Civil War yet either.
hedgehog mobile
@woodrowfan: /shudders/
laura
@Kay: Only an absolute clueless privileged moron couldn’t imagine that voter suppression would come roaring back
Sadly, what the privileged moron did was by design, with years and years of planning, and no end of money and intellectual chop shops, and if it hadn’t have been Roberts, it would have been Alito or Gorsuch or any Federalist Society member.
Kathleen
@Kay: A local TV station in Cincinnati procreated that poultry repeatedly and did “special investigation” based on complaints of “fraud” by GOP county chair who also served on county election commission. Turned out one poll worker voted twice and station hyped story way out of proportion. I refuse to watch them for that reason.
Kay
@sdhays:
It’s the kind of decision that makes people feel like their leaders are out of touch because if they don’t know that, if they can’t anticipate the kind of abuses that will (and did) occur the moment Roberts gutted that law then they don’t know anything about “us”.
It was 100% predictable that they would put in restrictive ID laws and then close state office branches- the places you have to go to get the ID- in AA areas. It’s a fundamental ignorance of how things work. The justices could not put themselves in the shoes of voters- A to B to C. Ordinary lives were unimaginable to them. A big part of the Texas cases are geography. The advocates had to drive home the distances we are talking about – the traveling poor people would have to do- 60 miles, 120 miles and what that translates to in time off work or cost. It was like they were explaining the United States to a group of people who don’t really live here.
Kay
@Kathleen:
Voter impersonation fraud, the kind of fraud voter ID laws are (supposedly) stopping, is tiny because it’s ludicrous on its face.
Walk thru this premise that media and conservatives bought completely. A person who is NOT a lawful voter appears personally at a polling station and impersonates a lawful voter. Pretends to be a different person. Hundreds or thousands or millions of these people. It’s not even a plus one. It’s one voter replacing another voter because there’s only one name in the poll book! That name can’t vote twice!
It’s the worst scheme in the history of the world. Normally sensible people should have said “this theory is fucking crazy” and you don’t have to know anything about election law to see that. Instead they all said “let’s pass laws to stop it”.
dmsilev
@Kay: You’re being much too kind to Roberts by assuming that he was ignorant of what would happen. It was malice, not incompetence.
rikyrah
These muthaphuckas closed every DMV office in a Black county, have a ridiculous poll tax Voter ID law, and still folks came out to vote.
We have NUMEROUS instances of Attempted Voter Suppression from election day.
Get the ENTIRE phuck outta here calling Voter Fraud
Emma
@Kay: which is why I keep saying Democrats have to emphasize winning local elections. There’s real power there.
sdhays
@Kay: I think you’re too kind. I think they simply didn’t care. The text of the 14th Amendment called for deference to Congress, especially with large majority passing the reauthorization. They wanted to gut it, so they did. The conservative “justices” are just evil.
matt
@laura: The Federalist Society is an organization whose purpose is rigging the US legal system.
randy khan
@debbie:
What he means is that he passed *by* a polygraph. They just left a little tiny word out of the complaint.
And, besides, polygraph results can’t be used in a court. Both he and his lawyers know that. (Okay, maybe just his lawyers.) It’s of a piece with the rest of his terrible arguments. (People lied during the campaign and so there should be a new election? Turnout was really high in precincts where people hated him and so it must be fraud? Seriously?) I’m not even sure that the court will wait for a response before throwing this out. Or, better yet, it could let the certification happen without doing anything. That would be really funny.
MattF
@randy khan: Or, Moore could be lying.
Rapier
This is just Roy staying in the news. His life is staying in the news. He’s a publicity hound just like most of Trump’s circle. He will always be running for something or otherwise finding ways to get his picture on TV. He lives to be a celebrity. That’s it. He may have convinced himself that his beliefs are genuine but I doubt it. They are just the means to an end. Being a celebrity.
randy khan
@MattF:
Well, if you want to go with the *obvious* choice . . .
kindness
Who else sees shades of Al Franken’s election in this? Moore (his funders really) want to slow down the seating of an elected Democrat instead of a Republican to a seat they think they own.
Cluttered Mind
@dmsilev: That’s what Caligula said. That said, Caligula might make a better senator than Roy Moore too.
George Spiggott
@Kay:
Not a “mistake” to the long-term operative, John G. Roberts:
randy khan
@kindness:
This feels more like a freelance effort by Moore to me, for what it’s worth. And since nobody in Alabama politics or the Alabama court system likes him, I think it’s doomed and will be over quickly.
George Spiggott
@Kay:
“Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?”
Sorry, just wanted to say that ;) Of course you know it’s not due to “ignorance” on the part of the GOP operatives, but all part of the plan.
George Spiggott
@Kay:
We should change election day to Halloween. I’ll dress up as Eddie Munster so I can impersonate and vote as Paul Ryan.
George Spiggott
@Cluttered Mind:
Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.
laura
@matt: in my first year of law school I tried attending a few “clubs” including the Federalist Society. Yikes!11! It was not for me, to say the least.
Even worse, I got to be in the same class as Andy Pugno -who went on to champion Prop (hate)8.
burnspbesq
I would pay serious money to watch Charnin be cross-examined under oath regarding his qualifications as an expert on voter fraud.
burnspbesq
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Moore carried Shelby County by 56 percent to 42.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
The literal horse’s ass would make a better senator. In smell, looks, and personality.
Ruckus
@woodrowfan:
I think they lie easier than breathing. Or at least as easy. They breathe through autonomic function, their ability to lie is as autonomic to them.
Kay
I still can’t believe the Trump Administration hired a TRUCK to block photos of lazy-ass Trump golfing again.
No one gives a shit. We know all he does is watch tv and golf. Dear Leader exposes himself on a daily basis. No reason to put a raincoat on him.
Frankensteinbeck
This is utterly meaningless. It’s just Moore being himself, a deranged, conspiracy-theorist sore loser.
@Raoul:
They will let this go. It will disappear in the memory hole with astonishing speed. Nobody will care outside Alabama, and damn few people will care in Alabama. Birtherism was driven by a black man being president. BANGHAZIIII was driven both by the black man (It’s about how Obama wants Americans to die because he’s a Muslim) and a woman who dared to seek more power (why it became Emails in the press). There is no equivalent hate here.
@Baud:
Polygraph tests are godawful unreliable. I don’t support their use for anything. They’re not good for identifying lies, and they have a gigantic 30% rate of identifying truth as a lie.
EDIT – Oh, and they require an element of human interpretation. You know where THAT leads.
Kay
I think they don’t like photos of Trump golfing because the photos are unflattering. Trump is the kind of man who has to live in an oversized suit. He looks horrible in casual clothes. Without those straight lines concealing him – ugh. Plus his ridiculous elaborate combover comes undone. He probably chose golf as a sport because it involves clothing that covers.
Quinerly
Someone may have mentioned this…just heard a local Alabama reporter commenting on NPR. He said what Moore really wants is to be governor. He’s doing this to keep his name in the news and to keep his voters stirred up.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Allowing voter suppression was the whole point of the decision. It was sabotage, not some kind of short-sighted mistake.
DougJ
You nailed it.
randy khan
Alabama reporter on Twitter says the state judge has denied the stay request.
Shocking.
Mnemosyne
@laura:
As I’ve said before, I know for sure that ghosts don’t exist because the ghosts of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are not constantly hounding members of the “Federalist” Society for opposing everything Madison and Hamilton wrote in The Federalist.
MattF
@randy khan: Done. Certification occurred at 1:10 Alabama time.
sdhays
@Quinerly: I wonder how much of a chance he has now. He lost to a Demoncrat! The stench of loserdom alone should make his next primary that much more difficult. And once he’s facing Republicans again, they might be willing to actually create some, say, law enforcement issues for him to deal with in order to ensure he doesn’t jeopardize their hold on the state government.
Mnemosyne
Also, too:
Let’s be clear: there is existing documentary evidence that John Merrill did everything in his power to tilt the election to Moore, and it’s quite possible that at least a few of those things crossed the legal borderline. The last thing Merrill wants is a federal investigation that will expose everything he did to benefit Moore. Merrill needs to sweep everything under the rug ASAP.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Absolutely right. He wants any talk of investigations into his area of influence shut down right now. Even if that means certifying a Democrat as the winner.
randy khan
@MattF:
Excellent.
So the question now is whether Moore will try to further befoul his former court by appealing the judge’s ruling. (I’m going with “yes.”)
MattF
@randy khan:
Seems likely. NYT notes:
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Absolutely on point
Ken
@MattF:
So that’s what, 1843 in the rest of the world?
Dulcie
@George Spiggott: Eddie Munster libel!!!!
justawriter
Roy Moore doesn’t know the meaning of the word defeat.
He doesn’t know the meaning of very many other words either.
laura
@Mnemosyne: and that is what I naively presumed in attending the meeting. Talk about a he-man women haters club. And yet, the accretion and abuse of power in opposition of Mr. H and Mr. M.