Miller drops Alaska Senate fight

ANCHORAGE, AK - NOVEMBER 2: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller smiles while listening to speakers at the Snow Goose Restaurant November 2, 2010 in Anchorage, Alaska. Miller, the Republican nominee and Tea Party-backed candidate, hopes to defeat a write-in campaign by Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski, whom he defeated in the primary election, and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams.(Photo by Eric Engman/Getty Images)

Following adverse decisions by Alaska courts, Senate candidate Joe Miller, R-Alaska, a favorite of tea-party voters, announced Friday he was ending his two-month legal battle to replace incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski.

"We are going to abide by the court's decision," said Miller, who added it was "unlikely" he could win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals or have his case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Dec. 22, the Alaska Supreme Court dismissed Miller's lawsuit attempting to force the Alaska Division of Elections to enforce the letter of the law in determining which votes were to be counted.

Miller lost by about 10,000 votes to Murkowski, who launched a write-in campaign after losing the Republican nomination to Miller in the primary. Miller campaign sources told WND the vote gap would have fallen to about 2,000 had the ballots challenged by Miller been thrown out.

Alaska law requires write-in ballots to be spelled correctly, but election officials opted to count many misspelled ballots for Murkowski. Miller also alleged significant amounts of voter fraud took place in the election, and Miller allies told WND enough votes should have been discounted to swing the election Miller's way.

While dropping its own legal efforts, the Miller campaign endorsed an election-related lawsuit filed by the United States Justice Foundation.

The USJF lawsuit, Rudolph, et al. v. Campbell, accuses the Alaska Division of Elections of counting misspelled ballots, allowing voters to cast ballots without providing identification as required by law, and applying a more lenient standard to hand-counted write-in ballots than to machine-counted ballots.

"The Miller campaign supports any effort that will result in greater light being shed on the elections process in Alaska and lead to greater integrity of the vote," Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto told WND.

Miller said he has no current plans to run for another office, but made it clear he intends to continue to be active in politics.

"It's said you can only die once but in politics you can die a thousand deaths," said Miller. "I like to focus on the resurrection part" of that saying.

"We still have lots to do," Miller added. "Many people want to get back to the foundational values of the country."

"People want to see the rule of law established," said the former candidate. "They want to see transparency in elections."

Miller vowed to continue his fight to lead the nation in a different direction from that taken by Murkowski "in the last few weeks." During the controversial lame duck session of the 111th Congress, Murkowski voted to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy banning open homosexuality in the military.