United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010
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The 2010 United States Senate election in Alaska took place on November 2, 2010, alongside 33 other U.S. Senate elections in other states, as well as elections in all states for Representatives to the U.S. House, and various state and local offices.
The November general election in Alaska was preceded by primary elections which were held on August 24, 2010. Scott McAdams, the Mayor of Sitka, became the Democratic Party nominee and Joe Miller, an attorney and former federal magistrate, became the Republican nominee after defeating incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. Miller was endorsed by the Tea Party movement and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Murkowski announced that regardless of her defeat in the primary, she would run in the general election as a write-in candidate.
Murkowski garnered more than 100,000 write-in votes in the general election, 8,000 of which were challenged by Miller for various errors including minor misspellings. Even if the challenged votes were all thrown out, Murkowski still had a lead of over 2,100 votes when the counting was done. The Associated Press and the Alaska GOP called the race in Murkowski's favor on November 17, and Murkowski proclaimed herself the winner on November 18. Miller did not concede the race and instead filed legal challenges which stopped the Alaska Division of Elections from certifying Murkowski as the winner. On December 10, the Alaska Superior Court in Juneau rejected Miller's State law claims, ruling that Alaska statutes and case law do not require perfect spelling on write-in ballots if voter intent is clear. The Superior Court judge also dismissed Miller's claims of vote fraud as based on speculation. Miller took his appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court, citing a provision in the Alaska election statute that says there shall be "no exceptions" to the rules for counting ballots, and arguing that therefore, all ballots with misspellings or other deviations should be thrown out. The court heard oral arguments on December 17. Miller also had a pending case in federal court raising U.S. constitutional claims that the Elections and the Due Process Clauses were violated by State election authorities; the federal court could consider the claims once Miller's State court options are exhausted.
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