Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has announced he is currently investigating potential voter fraud during the state’s recent special election held on December 12.
According to Merrill, the investigation is based upon the comments made by one man at a Doug Jones victory party after the former prosecutor upset GOP standard-bearer, conservative favorite and accused sexual predator Roy Moore.
During a series of man-at-the-party interviews, FOX10 News reporter Kati Weis had the following interaction with an unidentified Jones supporter:
Weis: Why are you excited to see this victory?Man: Because, 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!
Those comments were quickly seized upon by Moore supporters who began spreading an expansive voter fraud natrative occasionally based on fake news reports published by nominally “satirical” websites.
The interview quickly went viral and apparently prompted hundreds of comments from “concerned citizens” to be registered with Merrill’s office, which announced the investigation yesterday.
In comments to FOX 10, however, Merrill sounded a cautious tone. He said:
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.
Merrill continued, “We don’t have any evidence of people doing that, our numbers do not indicate that has happened, but when you have someone actually recorded on television saying that they voted, and that’s what he said, then we’ve got to get to the bottom of that.”
According to FOX10 News, the Jones campaign has been cooperating with Merrill’s investigation.
So far, it’s unclear what form Merrill’s investigation has taken or who the man in question actually is.
Law&Crime reached out to Merrill’s office for comment but no response was forthcoming at the time of publication.
[image via screengrab/FOX10 News]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher