U.S. Senator Murkowski, a Republican, ran as a write-in candidate in the November 2010 general election because she had been defeated by Miller in the August 2010 Republican primary. The largest number of ballots cast in the November election were write-ins which required a hand-count to determine the names written on those ballots. Federal lawsuit When Alaska's state Division of Elections announced that it would consider voter intent when reviewing the write-in ballots, Miller sued to prevent the counting of ballots that did not perfectly spell Murkowski's last name, or that did not reproduce her name exactly as it was stated on Murkowski's declaration of write-in candidacy, or that had penmanship issues. Miller claimed State law was very strict in this regard, and that all such ballots should be discounted. He claimed the federal court had jurisdiction saying that State election officials would be violating the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by using a voter intent standard. On November 19, the court ruled against Miller's request for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the write-in vote count, but allowed the lawsuit to continue. Alaska election officials said they counted votes that are misspelled if they are phonetic to Murkowski, claiming that Alaska case law including decisions of the Alaska Supreme Court supports this practice. The Alaska Department of Law asked the federal judge to dismiss the case because it is fundamentally concerned with a question of State law that can be decided in the State courts and suggested that Miller was forum shopping by taking an alleged violation of a State statute, and bootstrapping it into a violation of provision of the U.S. Constitution. On November 15 the Alaska Federation of Natives asked to be included in the lawsuit, claiming standing because if Miller received his requested relief, certain voters whom the AFN represents would be disenfranchised – namely members of the native population, non-native speakers of English, and people with disabilities that caused them to have shaky or poor handwriting. U.S. District judge Ralph Beistline rejected both AFN's and Murkowski's requests to intervene. Write-in count completed The Miller campaign had observers present during the count who questioned the validity of over 8,000 ballots. By the end of the counting on November 17, the Division of Elections showed Murkowski having a lead of over 10,000 votes, with about 8,000 of