Brad Friedman Byon 12/22/2010, 8:56pm PT

As largely expected, the Alaska Supreme Court has rejected GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's contest against the Division of Elections, which has unofficially determined write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski bested both Miller and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams on November 2nd.

Via Sean Cockerham at Anchorage Daily News...

The Alaska Supreme Court today ruled against Joe Miller on all counts, a decision that leaves his challenge of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s victory on life support. “There are no remaining issues raised by Miller that prevent this election from being certified,” the Supreme Court declared in its unanimous ruling. Murkowski leads Miller by more than 10,000 votes. Miller is quickly running out of options but he still has a chance to press his claim in federal court. U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline today gave Miller until Monday morning to argue the federal courts should take up any remaining constitutional issues.

...

Miller has indicated he might fight the election all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But his spokesman said today that Miller is weighing his next move.

See Cockerham's ADN article for more details on the high court's findings.

Here's Miller's original state complaint [PDF], his appeal to the AK Supreme Court [PDF] and the AK Supremes' 24-page ruling [PDF] on it (which we haven't gotten to read in full yet, so we may update based on our review.)

And here's our detailed report from yesterday, describing the general issues at stake, and offering what seems to have been a pretty accurate preview of what the court appears to have decided today. The decision once again leaving thousands of paper ballots completely unexamined by human eyes, tallied only by oft-failed, easily-manipulated computer systems, just as NY's highest court did earlier this week in a race that was far closer than the Miller/Murkowski/McAdams race.

The fight to see paper ballots actually be counted --- as per Democracy's Gold Standard --- continues.

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