Roy Moore’s End Game in the Alabama Senate Race

Roy Moore has not conceded in a race where he is down by about 1.5 percent, and today he has announced an election “integrity” fund for a possible recount.

There’s an automatic recount for a difference less than 0.5%, and he’s very unlikely to reach that threshold with the remaining provisional ballots.

A recount could cost up to a million dollars according to some estimates I’ve seen, and my reading of Alabama law is that he is not entitled to pay for one as a federal candidate (though the Secretary of State of Alabama seems to think otherwise).  Any recount would be exceedingly unlikely to change results.

So what is Moore up to?

One possibility is that he believes a recount would make a difference.

The other, more likely possibility, is that he will use it as a way to raise funds for himself, which he could use in a future federal race or for some other purposes. He wouldn’t be the first candidate to use a recount in this way. Some say that’s just what Jill Stein did in the 2016 presidential election.

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