POLITICS JANUARY 7, 2019 / 6:27 PM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO

Alabama attorney general asks feds to investigate 2017 election

Dan Whitcomb
3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - Alabama’s attorney general asked federal elections officials on Monday to investigate allegations that the 2017 U.S. Senate election that Republican Roy Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones was tainted by use of a misleading social media campaign.

Attorney General Steve Marshall has said he was concerned over tactics used in the election. Jones, a former federal prosecutor, became the first Democrat in a quarter-century to win a U.S. Senate race in the state when he upset Moore by a narrow margin to win the seat formerly held by Republican Jeff Sessions.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Democratic operatives had sought to undermine Moore by creating a Facebook page claiming that his supporters wanted to ban alcohol in the state.

The newspaper has previously reported that Democrats created a separate “false flag” Facebook page that portrayed Moore as supported by Russian bot accounts.

“The Attorney General’s Office has evaluated reports of possible deception in the Alabama U.S. Senate race and has determined the matter to be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Election Commission,” Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Republican attorney general, told Reuters on Monday.

-snip-