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Doug Jones declared next Alabama senator while Roy Moore claims fraud

Judge denies Moore's lawsuit demanding a re-vote

It’s official: Doug Jones is the next senator from Alabama, the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Alabama in over two decades, no matter how loudly his opponent protests.

The results of the Senate race were certified by Alabama’s Secretary of State on Thursday afternoon, in spite of a Roy Moore lawsuit challenging the result. Jones took the race by about 22,000 votes, a 1.5 percent margin of the 1.3 million votes that were cast, a stunning upset in the deeply red state.

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The official, certified vote tally:

  • Jones, 673,896, or 50 percent
  • Moore, 651,972, 48.3 percent
  • Write-ins, 22,852, or 1.7 percent

Moore, who was repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct during the campaign, never conceded defeat, and, on Thursday morning, alleged voter fraud in a lawsuit, and asked for a do-over. The Alabama Secretary of State has said repeatedly in the weeks since the election that it would be very unlikely that Doug Jones would not be declared the winner, and a judge denied Moore’s complaint on Thursday, moments before the results were ultimately certified.

READ: Roy Moore challenging Alabama election results because God didn't deliver

Still, Moore has persisted in questioning the results, and called for certification to be delayed. Moore’s complaint asks the court to “issue an order directing that a new special election be held or, alternatively, that a finding as to the extent of voter fraud be determined with regard to its impact upon the current results.”

The complaint also reported that Moore had taken a polygraph test after the election, which, the complaint claims, disproves accusations of sexual assault against him.

Moore has rarely conceded his losses. He lost the 2006 and the 2010 Republican primaries for governor and conceded in neither of those races.

Jones, for his part, said in a statement that the lawsuit was “a desperate attempt by Roy Moore to subvert the will of the people.”