A poll released Monday on the eve of Alabama’s closely watched special election for the Senate suggests liberal efforts to register ex-convicts could backfire on Democrat Doug Jones — and help embattled Republican Roy Moore.

Thousands of Alabamians reportedly have taken advantage of a state law, signed earlier this year, that makes it easier for some felons to restore their voting rights. Conventional political wisdom has most of these newly restored voters as likely to vote for Jones on Tuesday.

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But the Emerson College poll indicated that felons surveyed would break for Moore, not Jones. Spencer Kimball, an adviser to the polling operation, told LifeZette the ex-cons survey sample was small and therefore subject to a potentially high error rate. Yet the numbers suggest the group might actually hurt Jones.

“It is possible they wouldn’t be who I would suggest would be the strongest demographic for Jones to go after,” Kimball said.

The felons surveyed favored Moore, 64 percent to 27 percent. Kimball said he typically wants at least 30 respondents to be confident in polling results for a subgroup of voters; Monday’s survey had just 22. But he said that even if another eight felons had been added to the sample and all had backed Jones, Moore still would have won that group.

That’s not what either side expects. Think Progress, the editorial arm of the liberal Center for American Progress, ran a story on the issue last month under the headline, “Tens of thousands of newly registered felons could swing Alabama Senate election.”

Breitbart reported on how the “Soros Army” has been registering felons, a reference to billionaire progressive activist George Soros. His Open Society Foundations contributed to the efforts of multiple activists groups in registering voters from the ranks of former Alabama prisoners.

Moore, linking to an AL.com story on the issue, tweeted: “BREAKING: Democrat operatives in Alabama are REGISTERING THOUSANDS OF FELONS all across the state in an effort to swing the US Senate election to Doug Jones! #ALSen.”

The Definition of Moral Turpitude Act narrowed the list of offenses that exclude Alabamians from the ballot box by defining a crime of “moral turpitude.” That removed the arduous and expensive process of restoring voting rights for thousands convicted of lesser offenses.

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Jonathan Gray, an Alabama-based Republican political consultant, said the state’s prison population is disproportionately black and that African-Americans overwhelmingly favor Democrats. But he said it is plausible that whites convicted of crimes would skew Republican.

Gray said whites convicted of crimes in many ways resemble Alabama Republican voters — and particularly the types of Republicans most likely to favor Moore. He said they tend to be less educated than the population at large.

“Lower-educated whites are more likely to vote for Moore,” he said, adding that people coming out of prison are “not working on their master’s degrees mixing chlorine and baking soda.”

Gray also noted that many people find religious faith in prison — which could make them open to a message from an evangelical figure like Moore.

“Did anybody consider how strong faith is in prison? It is patently wrong to think convicted felons are [all] Democrats.”

“Did anybody consider how strong faith is in prison?” Gray said. “It is patently wrong to think convicted felons are [all] Democrats.”

Gray said he doesn’t think ex-cons are likely to determine the outcome Tuesday one way or the other. He said the total ex-felon vote likely will not exceed 0.5 percent. Kimball said his poll suggested it could reach maybe 3 percent.

Overall, the Emerson poll projected a Moore victory by 9 percentage points despite allegations that he inappropriately touched teen girls and young women as a young prosecutor in the 1970s. It was one of three final pre-election polls on Monday that were all over the map. A Fox News survey had Jones up by 10 points, while a Monmouth University poll declared it a dead heat.

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Alabama voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide who among the pollsters got it right. Kimball said he believes the Fox survey, which consistently has been more favorable to Jones and other pollsters, has oversampled Democrats.

Predicting turnout in an off-year special election in the middle of the Christmas season is more art than science. But Kimball remains confident in his model. He said 9 points is outside the margin of error. The poll has a 95 percent confidence level that Moore will win anywhere from a close race to a blowout.

“He has a better chance of getting to the 15-point range than Jones does of taking over and winning,” he said.

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.