‘Stop the Steal’ rally held in Spanish Fort

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SPANISH FORT – While results were challenged in some other states, Alabama’s election went well in November, Secretary of State James Merrill said Saturday.

Merrill spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Spanish Fort. The event was sponsored by the Common Sense Campaign TEA Party to protest what supporters said was fraud in the November presidential election.

Merrill said careful planning helped the election go well in Alabama despite setbacks in the days before the polls opened.

“We know everything went well in Alabama and that’s the reason we haven’t heard anything about it,” Merrill said. “It’s interesting that there are very few people in our state that even know that we had between 800 and 1,000 polling sites in our state that didn’t even have power four days before the election because of Hurricane Zeta. But we worked together with our power partners to ensure that everything was in place. When you see that kind of support and that kind of encouragement going together, it’s clear that things are going extraordinarily well.”

He said officials in some states did not follow guidelines set for elections. Many of the states where results were challenged do not have statewide regulations for election procedures.

“I know a lot of people are very concerned about the way that the elections went in the other states, specifically some of those states that have been mentioned in lawsuits, but I think the thing that we saw was that people went outside the scope and boundaries of their assigned duties as election officials or chief executives in those states. We had major concerns and major issues that needed to be addressed that people felt like their only recourse was going through the legal process,” Merrill said.

Merrill spoke the day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a suit filed by Texas officials challenging election results in four states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Merrill said one problem with some of the lawsuits, including the one filed by Texas, is not the merits of the case, but the qualification of the parties to file a complaint.

“One of the problems that you see is that people without standing have actually filed lawsuits,” Merrill said. “In order for you to make sure that your case is properly adjudicated to reflect the views or you and your fellow citizens in your community, you have to make sure that you have standing so that when it goes to the court of law, there’s going to be an opportunity, A, for the judge to agree to hear it and, B, to say that what you’re bringing to them has merit.”

More than 56 lawsuits have been filed challenging Biden’s election. At least 46 of those have been denied, dismissed, settled or withdrawn, according to reports.

Event organizer Lew Campomenosi questioned the Supreme Court ruling but said the decision will make the effort to stop Biden’s election more difficult. He said the decision ignored constitutional issues that needed to be addressed.

“Let’s put it this way, it doesn’t make it easy and I think that’s part of the problem that we’re dealing with right now,” Campomenosi said. “How are we supposed to keep the motivation and stay in the fight? There are state court decision that still have to be made.”

Merrill also asked rally participants to support Republican efforts to win two Senate runoffs in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate. He said Alabama residents can send donations to the candidates and volunteer to support the campaigns.

In Georgia, Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. If both Democrats win, each party would have 50 senators when the new term begins, and the tie-breaking vote would go to Vice-President Kamela Harris when she takes office.