After a contentious campaign and a contested election, it seems like the race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones over the U.S. Senate seat, formerly held by current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is over. Due to the rejection of a legal complaint from Roy Moore’s campaign, Doug Jones has been declared the new junior Senator from Alabama.

The Roy Moore campaign filed their complaint yesterday with a court in Montgomery, Alabama, claiming that there was evidence of voting irregularities that were more than great enough to turn the tide of the election against Moore and in favor of Doug Jones. Today, one judge rejected that claim, and Alabama election officials certified Doug Jones as the first Democrat Senator from Alabama in 25 years.

The campaign was a hard-fought one, with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore facing constant claims of sexual assault, harassment, and other misconduct, often with individuals who claimed to be under the age of 18 at the time. It is interesting to note, however, that though the stories surrounding these claims dominated the news media nationally and locally during the campaign, after the election they have disappeared. It almost seems as if the media was never interested in the claims, or in investigating them, but rather in harming Roy Moore’s chances of election.

It seems that their tactic worked, however. Roy Moore lost in the December 12 election to Doug Jones, losing by over 21,000 votes to former federal prosecutor Doug Jones. Since then, Judge Roy Moore has outright refused to concede the election to Doug Jones, even when Trump urged him to.

President Donald Trump backed Roy Moore throughout his campaign for the empty Senate seat, but even President Trump called on Roy Moore to resign, saying in part “I want to support the person running. We need the seat. We’d like to have the seat,” when asked about the situation in Alabama.

Judge Roy Moore and his campaign filed a complaint in court saying that there was reason to believe that substantial voter fraud may have taken place in the December 12 election. Roy Moore himself said that “this is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone.” Judge Roy Moore also continued on to say that he was seeking to “call on Secretary of State Merrill to delay certification until there is a thorough investigation of what three independent election experts agree took place: election fraud sufficient to overturn the outcome of the election.”

Obviously, Secretary of State Merrill did not see enough cause to overturn the election or delay certification of the results, even though there were (and still are) questions about the validity of the election.

Judge Roy Moore alleges that according to three independent Election Integrity Experts, it can be stated “with a reasonable degree of statistical and mathematical certainty … election fraud occurred.” These three experts also claim that election irregularities in just 20 of the 2,220 voting precincts in Alabama could more than account for the gap in votes between Moore and Jones.

There is also the issue with the words spoken by canvassers and ‘volunteers’ for the Doug Jones campaign, who stated while being filmed for a news segment that they had come from other states to help get out the vote and to vote for Doug Jones. While it is completely legal to volunteer for an election in another state, it is NOT legal to vote in a state in which you are not a resident.

Apparently, the Alabama Secretary of State did not agree that there is enough evidence there to delay certification of the election of Doug Jones, who will hold the seat until 2021. Evidence from alleged fraudulent voters, along with a signed letter from a poll worker who claimed she saw North Carolina and Georgia licenses at the polling station she worked at, did not matter enough to delay certification of Jones.

In a cynical claim, California liberal and UC Irvine ‘election law expert’ and professor Rick Hasen suggested that Judge Moore’s complaint did not raise the sort of issues that would usually motivate a court to overturn the results of an election, continuing on to suggest that Moore seems to be more concerned with fundraising and throwing “red meat to his loyal supporters.”

Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican in Alabama, the fact that the state does not care to take a few days to investigate claims of irregularities should be shocking and abhorrent. If elections are not fairly run and liberals from Georgia or North Carolina can undermine them with illegal votes, then the entire concept behind the election is rendered nonsensical.

Whether Judge Roy Moore should be taking the contested Senate seat or not is up for debate. The dishonesty of the state of Alabama in refusing to investigate their elections is not. The state failed its citizens, and it failed to safeguard the sanctity of their elections.