The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday denied Senate candidate Joe Miller's claims that the state conducted the midterm election improperly, effectively affirming incumbent Lisa Murkowski's 10,328-vote lead over Mr. Miller and paving the way for her to begin her term in January.
Ms. Murkowski, who like Mr. Miller is Republican, had launched a write-in campaign for the Senate seat in August after Mr. Miller beat her in the Republican primary. The Associated Press declared her victorious in mid-November. But Mr. Miller had hoped that a court decision in his favor could pull him ahead of his rival.
The decision culminates a weeks-long battle that wended its way through federal and state courts. In November, Mr. Miller sued the state over the election in federal court, where a judge declined to rule on the case but barred the state from certifying the election results without giving Mr. Miller a chance to seek resolution in state court. Mr. Miller then sued in state court, and when a Superior Court judge ruled against him in early December, he appealed to the Supreme Court.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court wrote, "We affirm the decision of the superior court in all respects. There are no remaining issues raised by Miller that prevent this election from being certified."
Mr. Miller had asked the court to throw out misspelled and otherwise imperfect ballots previously counted for Ms. Murkowski. He had also asked for a recount of ballots rejected as invalid by a scanning machine. And he had hoped the judges would throw out votes from those who didn't display proper identification or who let someone else fill out their write-in ballot for them.
Spokespeople for Mr. Miller and Ms. Murkowski didn't immediately have a comment on the court ruling.
