Alaska state officials said Tuesday they plan to proceed with this week’s count of write-in ballots in the Senate contest after Republican Joe Miller sued the state’s lieutenant governor and Division of Elections in federal court to try stop the state’s plan for counting write-in ballots that misspell the name of his rival Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Absentee ballots are counted at the State of Alaska Division of Elections Office Tuesday in Fairbanks. (Photo by Eric Engman/Getty Images)

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, said that the U.S. Constitution requires that election rules be set by state legislatures. The state Division of Election’s plan to consider “voter intent” when reading ballots, though doing so isn’t part of the state law, is therefore unlawful, it argues.

“We are aware of the lawsuit,” Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell said in a statement. “We have sent it to the department of law and the attorney general, and we are proceeding with the write-in count as planned at this time.”

Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai has previously pointed to Alaska cases in which voter intent was considered.

Thomas Van Flein, Joe Miller’s attorney, said Mr. Miller decided to filed suit after the Division of Elections published guidelines for counting names on write-in ballots, which noted that some misspellings could be counted in Ms. Murkowski’s favor.