Doug Jones Certified as Alabama Senator Despite Roy Moore's Call for New Election

Democrat Doug Jones's election as U.S. senator from Alabama was certified today, despite a lawsuit from opponent Roy Moore challenging the results.

"Doug Jones will be certified today at 2 p.m. eastern time, 1 p.m. central time," Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told CNN's New Day this morning. "The governor, Kay Ivey, our attorney general Steve Marshall and I will meet in the office of the secretary state, in the executive office, and we will sign the documents certifying him as the senator for the state of Alabama. He will be sworn in by Vice President Pence on the third of January when the Senate returns." The results have now been formally certified.

Moore filed a complaint in Montgomery County Circuit Court late Wednesday asking state officials to delay certification of the December 12 special election until they investigate "all the evidence of potential fraud," which he contends was widespread. Alabama "will suffer irreparable harm" otherwise, the complaint argues, going on to urge state leaders to call a new special election. About 12:30 p.m. Central time today, a judge denied Moore's request to halt certification, reports AL.com, a site for several Alabama newspapers.

The complaint's arguments were fairly thin. "It cites rumors of election fraud that have already been investigated and refuted by the Alabama secretary of state, argues that high Democratic turnout in key areas was statistically unlikely, and reports that Moore himself has taken a polygraph test -- an attempt to disprove allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances on teenagers when he was in his 30s," The Washington Post reports.

The allegations, first reported by the Post, may have been what cost Moore the election. Moore, a Republican, is an anti-LGBT, religious right extremist who was twice removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court -- the first time for refusing to take down a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse, the second time for trying to block marriage equality in the state. He unexpectedly lost to Jones by about 20,000 votes in the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, who is now U.S. attorney general. Moore bested the interim senator, Luther Strange, in the Republican primary.

Moore's complaint cites four so-called experts on why there should be a new election, but some of them come with "baggage," the Post reports. James Condit Jr., for instance, is a Holocaust denier, according to the Forward, a publication focusing on Jewish concerns.

Condit "has previously written and spoken about Zionist control of the media, the Nazi Party and the Catholic Church, that Israel played a role in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and that it was 'preposterous' that six million Jews died in the Holocaust or that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz," the Forward notes.

Another, Richard Charnin, "claimed to have 'mathematically' proven a conspiracy behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy," the Post reports.

Sam Coleman, a spokesman for Jones's campaign, was not impressed by Moore's complaint. "This desperate attempt by Roy Moore to subvert the will of the people will not succeed," he told the Post. "The election is over, it's time to move on."