The contested Austin City Council election of 2014 — yes, 2014 — may have come to a close.

The Texas Third Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a trial court’s 2015 ruling that declared Council Member Greg Casar the winner of the December 2014 runoff, and also upheld the trial court’s $40,000 in sanctions against opponent Laura Pressley and $50,000 against her former attorney. Pressley and attorney David Rogers will also be responsible for paying $25,000 to the court of appeals and about $7,794 to Casar in legal fees.

Neither Pressley nor her lawyers responded Friday to requests for comment, but Pressley has said all along that the case was about questioning the results of the election in North Austin’s District 4 and was not directed personally at Casar. The suit had to be filed against him, she said, because of state law for election contests.

Casar, who won the 2014 runoff with nearly 65 percent of the vote, said on Friday that he was pleased with the ruling and grateful for the support of his attorneys and community members. Because of them, he said, he has been able to "focus on what I was elected to do and have not been too distracted by this."

"I think that everyone in Austin is ready to move on and has moved on because we’ve had a whole other set of elections since the lawsuit was filed," said Casar, who served a two-year term and won reelection in November. "My focus is on addressing our housing crisis and our transportation woes and civil rights issues and not focusing on what is ultimately a frivolous lawsuit."

Casar added that he hoped the sanctions would help cover some of his expenses, but he also has raised legal defense funds from supporters that he plans to use.

The heart of Pressley’s lawsuit was that the Travis County office charged with running elections broke the law by not securing "ballot images" from its electronic voting machines. That makes it impossible to determine the actual outcome of the runoff and means a new election should occur, her attorneys argued before the appellate court in April.

Casar’s attorneys countered that the lawsuit went beyond the scope of challenging one City Council race and that the "cast vote record" maintained by Travis County — a record showing each voter’s chosen slate of candidates — is widely recognized as being the same as a "ballot image."

In Friday’s 54-page memorandum opinion, Justice Melissa Goodwin ruled that Pressley and her attorneys did not have enough evidence that any illegal votes were counted, that any legal votes were not counted or that the outcome of the election was affected by either. Mills also wrote that Pressley did not have enough evidence to show that the county clerk violated Election Code or the Texas Constitution.

The ruling also noted that the trial court had warned Pressley and Rogers that they could be on the hook for additional fees if they unsuccessfully appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.