Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne pointed to the abnormally high number of write-ins in Tuesday’s special election as the deciding factor in Doug Jones’s victory over Roy Moore.
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“Did you vote for Roy Moore?” asked MSNBC’s Willie Geist.
“Of course I did, he was the only Republican on the ballot,” responded Rep. Byrde.
“Well you could have written somebody in that’s why I asked,” said Geist.
Rep. Byrde stated, “I could have and I know some people did. But if you look at it, very few people relatively speaking did. But, if you look at the number of people who wrote-in, that’s more votes than there was in terms of the margin of victory for Doug Jones.”
In one of the most contested elections in Alabama’s recent history, Democrat Doug Jones won a senatorial special election over Republican candidate Roy Moore.
This is the first time since 1992 that Alabamians have elected a Democrat to the Senate. The last elected Democratic senator was Richard Shelby, who later in his senatorial career changed his party affiliation to Republican.
President Trump tweeted that “write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win.”
Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
Doug Jones won the Alabama special election Tuesday with 49.9 percent of the vote, while Moore claimed 48.4 percent of the vote. More than 20,000 Alabamians voted for a write-in candidate, which is about 1.7 percent of the electorate, almost the same percentage as Jones’ winning margin.