One Man's Alaska

Alaska Senate news - Joe Miller loses Supreme Court appeal on all counts

December 23, 2010

Alaska Senate election news: Alaska's Joe Miller just lost his Alaska Supreme Court battle on all counts. The Alaska Suprement Court issued this statement regarding Mr. Miller's legal challenges:

"We affirm the decision of the Superior Court in all respects," the justices wrote in an order handed down early Wednesday afternoon. "There are no remaining issues raised by Miller that prevent this election from being certified."

While that seems like it might end Mr. Miller's legal battles, the Alaska Dispatch provides more details on where this might go:

Because state courts aren't the only legal arena Miller has pursued for relief, certification can't occur until a federal court first gives the OK. Miller also lodged a complaint in federal court, and it is in that case, filed first, that U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline put a mandatory hold on certification of the race's results pending review by the lower courts. Last week Beistline signaled his willingness to lift that order once a ruling from the Alaska Supreme Court came in.

Even if Miller decides to keep up the fight, nothing prevents him from waging ongoing challenges after Murkowski is validated by the state as the election winner and sent back to Washington, D.C., Beistline said.

As I've written before, I'm surprised that Mr. Miller is fighting this issue so hard. Even if he were to win the case that misspellings of the name "Lisa Murkowski" shouldn't be counted, he would still lose the Alaska Senate race by over 2,000 votes, so I don't know what he's fighting about. I assume that he thinks this is his one and only chance to win the Alaska Senate race, so he's giving it all he's got. I just hope he knows he's leaving a bad taste in the mouths of Alaskans who think he's wasting the time and money of the Alaska legal system.

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