Alaska federal Judge Ralph Beistline set an expedited briefing schedule yesterday for Joe Miller’s state Supreme Court appeal over the Senate race, and said that “most certainly, Alaska should have a Senator certified by January 3, 2011, even if subsequent events require that the Senator be replaced.”
Miller appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday after an Alaska judge ruled against him on Friday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski waged an apparently successful write-in campaign after losing to Miller in the Republican primary. Miller’s suit includes claims of voter fraud, and the argument that the Alaska Division of Elections broke the law when it counted misspelled write-in ballots as votes for Sen. Lisa Murkowski. State Superior Court Judge William Carey rejected all of Miller’s arguments in his ruling last week.
District Court Judge Beistline had blocked the state from certifying the results for Murkowski until the state ruled, but the Murkowski camp has argued that if she is not seated by January 5th, when the new Senate session begins, she will lose her seniority.
In his latest filing, Beistline says he is “aware of the importance of timely certification to whomever is the prevailing party.”
“In this regard,” he continues, “the Court does not believe that certification of the election is necessarily the ‘end all’ of this dispute. In other words, certification does not preclude further litigation nor prevent the certification from being revoked if subsequent litigation proves the certification to have been in error.”
Arguments for the appeal are now set for Friday, and Judge Beistline added that once the Supreme Court has ruled, assuming he loses, Miller has until 10 a.m. on December 20, or 48 hours from the decision, to appeal to Beistline’s court.
