One clue to the upset in Alabama: 22,800 write-in votes

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — As supporters of Roy S. Moore on Wednesday sifted the results of his stunning loss in Alabama, one number jumped out: About 22,800 write-in votes were cast, more than the gap separating Moore, the scandal-plagued Republican, from the victorious Doug Jones, the first Democratic senator elected in the state in a quarter-century.

Many of the votes are thought to have been cast by Republicans displeased by Moore but unwilling to cross party lines, and who wanted to register a protest.

"I would bet strongly it was good Republican voters who couldn't stomach voting for Roy Moore, but didn't want to stay home," said Brent Buchanan, a Republican strategist in Alabama. "It was a protest vote."

[Analysis: In Alabama, a lousy night for Republicans and a humiliating defeat for Trump]

One was Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the Republican dean of Alabama's congressional delegation, who said over the weekend that he could not vote for Moore and had written in the name of "a distinguished Republican" whom he declined to identify. Stephen K. Bannon, President Donald Trump's former White House adviser, said Monday at a Moore rally that there was "a special place in hell" for Republicans like Shelby.

An array of factors fueled Jones' upset win in a deeply conservative state, including a surge in black turnout and pervasive frustration with Moore among well-heeled suburban residents who ordinarily push Republicans to victory. Some strategists suggested that the write-in votes also tipped the race, depriving Moore, who was accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls, of the support that a less-compromised Republican would have garnered.

"Those are people who value democracy and intellectual consistency and conservative ideals so much that they were still willing to go to the polls and vote," said Collier Tynes, a Republican who was chief of staff to Dianne Bentley when she was first lady of Alabama. But they are unwilling, she said, "to compromise human decency and conservative ideals."

No less a strategist than Trump, who made a late push for Moore, drew attention to the write-in votes as the race was called on Tuesday night. "The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win," Trump wrote on Twitter.

By Wednesday night, with the margin between the candidates at 1.5 percent in unofficial results, Moore had not conceded, and his campaign made no formal statements. Alabama's secretary of state, John H. Merrill, said the gap, small as it was, was not small enough to cause an automatic recount.

Because the number of write-in votes appears to exceed the margin of victory, an Alabama law that requires that the names of write-in candidates be officially tallied is likely to be triggered. Merrill will determine whether the counting requirement applies by noon Monday.

Such a count would reveal who, exactly, had snared the votes that might have secured a rare Democratic victory.

Past elections have shown a variety of write-in recipients: friends, neighbors, pastors, an imprisoned former governor. Perhaps in that spirit, a liberal super PAC sought to starve Moore of support by promoting Nick Saban, the head football coach at the University of Alabama, as a write-in. (Saban, who has won four national championships at Alabama and is the state's highest-paid public employee, has said relatively little over the years about his politics, but he is an especially common write-in. A spokesman said Wednesday that Saban was not available for comment.)

County-level results suggested that write-in votes hurt Moore. In two large counties, Madison and Tuscaloosa, write-ins accounted for at least 1.9 percent of the votes cast, above the statewide average. Jones won both counties, each of which Trump carried in 2016. In exit polls, demographic groups with the largest proportions of write-in votes included white college graduates (3 percent) and voters aged 18-29 (3 percent).

Samuel Moffett, 26, a chemical engineer, called himself "a strong Christian" who used to vote straight Republican. This time, he said, he wrote in the name of Ron Bishop of the Libertarian Party.

Despite Moore's strenuous appeals to evangelical Christians, Moffett said that he found the candidate's attacks on his female accusers, and his past suggestion that homosexuality should be criminalized, to be disqualifying.

"I don't think he really acts on the Christian beliefs I want people to associate with my faith," said Moffett, who lives in St. Clair County. "He uses his faith as a cop-out."

[As Democrats add Senate seat, GOP left to cast blame over Alabama failure]

Nicholas Franklin, 28, a cybersecurity specialist in Madison County, said he wrote in the name of a local librarian because he thought Jones was too liberal, and because he disliked Moore, who was effectively removed twice from the state Supreme Court, even before the accusations of sexual misconduct.

"I don't vote for demagogues," he said.

Alan Blinder reported from Montgomery, and Trip Gabriel from New York. Marc Tracy contributed reporting from New York.