Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is investigating a concern over potential voter fraud in last Tuesday’s special Senate election.
It all stems from a brief interview FOX10 News Reporter Kati Weis conducted at the Doug Jones victory party on election night when a young man made a comment that has now gone viral on social media.
The interview took place just minutes after the race had been called.
While live on air, in the middle of the crowded party, Kati walked up to a number of jubilant supporters at random, asking them for their reactions to the big win.
But, it was this question and answer that has caused controversy:
“Kati: 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!”
Merrill said he is trying to find out who the man is, and if he really meant what he said, or if he only misspoke.
“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,” said Merrill.
Merrill said, so far, there is no concrete evidence that any voter fraud has taken place.
“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,” said Merrill.