Weigel

Here's the Alaska Supreme Court's ruling in Miller v. Treadwell , which tosses the Republican U.S. Senate candidate's case to overturn the election results. It's an amazing read when you consider that Miller has a law degree from Yale; the shoddiness of his case is all over the decision.

On Miller's claim that non-write-in ballots weren't given the same scrutiny as write-in ballots, and thus there might be votes missing from his total:

Miller claims that because the total write-in votes from the manual count — 103,805 — was higher than the number of write- in votes detected by the optical scanner, the workers must have applied "more lenient standards" that unfairly advantaged Murkowski. He claims that "it is unclear how many additional votes Joe Miller, or any other preprinted candidate, would have gained, had those same standards been applied to all the ballots in the election." But having carefully examined the record in this case, we conclude that the record does not support Miller’s contention that ballots in category two were treated differently depending on whether they were cast for candidates whose names were pre-printed on the ballot. Observers working on Miller’s behalf had the opportunity to challenge the sorting of every ballot cast in the election, and every category-two ballot was individually examined, as were the ballots in category four. In addition, only one individual — the Director of the Division — looked at all of the ballots containing anomalies, including both over-votes and under-votes. We fail to see how having one person examine all overcount, undercount, and write-in ballots and all ballots challenged by either candidate is not a uniform standard. Finally, the Director’s examination resulted in additional votes for both Miller and Democratic nominee Scott McAdams, as well as Murkowski. Because the Division applied the methodology described above to every precinct, we conclude that the Division’s methodology gave all of the ballots — as well as all of the candidates — equal treatment.

On Miller's request that ballots with similar signatures be re-examined:

Alaska Statute 15.15.240 allows any qualified voter to ask for assistance, including assistance in writing in the name of a write-in candidate. No reasonable inference of misconduct can arise from the mere fact that the handwriting on multiple ballots appears to be from a small number of people. And though we have interpreted Civil Rule 56(f) liberally to allow a litigant a meaningful opportunity to obtain evidence to present a case, pure speculation cannot support a fishing expedition for evidence to oppose summary judgment in an election contest. We affirm the superior court’s summary dismissal of this election contest claim.

The gap between what the Miller campaign claims happened in the election, and what actually happened in the election, gets wider with every one of these decisions.

Miller v Treadwell