A week after Doug Jones was voted Alabama’s new senator-elect, his opponent Roy Moore has yet to concede defeat.
On Monday, Moore’s campaign team sent out another email to supporters seeking funds for an “Election Integrity Program” that would look into alleged “reports of potential voter fraud.”
“The integrity of this election ― and future elections ― is hanging in the balance,” the email read.
Moore, whose campaign was plagued by multiple allegations he sexually harassed teenage girls when he was in his 30s and sexually assaulted one, said last week that his campaign team had collected “numerous reported cases of voter fraud,” which it planned to send to Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill.
However, Merrill told WHNT-TV on Monday that he had yet to receive such a report from the Moore campaign. Merrill previously said that his office had investigated reports of alleged voting irregularities and had not found any merit to them.
In the days since Jones’ surprising election win, Moore has repeatedly insisted to his supporters that the “battle rages on.”
“In this race, we have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots. This has been a very close race and we are awaiting certification by the secretary of state,” Moore said in a video released last Wednesday.
Officials have said that it was very unlikely those final votes would change the outcome of the election.
Jones, the first Democratic senator from Alabama in 25 years, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that it was time for Moore to “move on.”
“Alabama has spoken. It was a close election, there’s no question about that, but elections can be close sometimes. But now it’s time to heal. Now it’s time to move on and go to the next thing,” he said.
Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes ― or 1.5 percentage points. President Donald Trump, who endorsed Moore, has also called on the former judge to concede.
“I think he should. He tried,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
Twitter has been abuzz this week with news of Moore’s continued refusal to concede: