State orders count of write-ins; Busby carries Escambia, Strange gets a few and Donald pulls two
Lee Busby got 37 votes, Luther Strange pulled in 18 and Donald Duck was even able to garner two votes in Escambia County during the special Dec. 12 election between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore.
Secretary of State John Merrill ordered election officials in every county to tabulate the write-in votes earlier this week. Merrill said state law requires the write-in votes to be tabulated if the number of write-ins is larger than the difference between the top two candidates. Unofficial returns showed Jones receiving 671,151 votes to Moore's 650,436 for a 20,715 margin. Returns also showed there were 22,780 write-in votes cast across the state.
Election officials also canvassed the results of the election Tuesday to get the official returns.
In Escambia County, Jones and Moore each picked up two additional votes when the provisional ballots were counted. The official returns for the county showed Moore with 4,987 votes to Jones' 3,642.
Merrill said counties must publicly declare the results by noon Friday and report them to his office. The state canvassing board, which includes Merrill, Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall, will certify the results no earlier than Dec. 26 and not later than Jan. 3.
Judge of Probate Doug Agerton said there were five provisional ballots that were not counted. He said two were cast from people not registered to vote in Alabama, one was not a resident of Alabama, another voted at the wrong precinct and the fifth registered to vote after the deadline.
Tuesday was also the deadline to count oversea absentee ballots. Circuit Clerk John Robert Fountain said he had no late ballots to be counted.
The results did show that Escambia County received 87 write-in votes on Dec. 12.
Others receiving write-in votes were:
Ron Bishop and No Name with three each; Joe Whitt III, Tripp Pittman, Jeff Sessions, Cynthia Moore, and Lyn Stuart each received two votes; and Frank Nalty, Keith Pugh, Sgt. Brian Wesley, Robbie Cotton, Condalezza Rice, Rep. Gary Palmer, Cavin Cawthon, Carolyn McCullough, Mo Brooks, Seth Hammett, Jim Hart, David Bodiour, Chanda Crutcher and Susan Smith each received one vote.
