GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller of Alaska asked a federal judge Thursday to stop officials from certifying the state's election results.
    
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who currently holds the lead by 10,400 votes, declared victory on Wednesday. But an attorney for Miller sought a preliminary injunction to challenge the write-in ballots for Murkowski.  
    
Miller has challenged 8,153 write-in ballots and would still be behind even if he won every challenge. Still, he said he wants to examine the results and election procedures before deciding on his next move.

In an affidavit, he said the hand-counting process had begun earlier than expected, catching his campaign team off guard.

"My campaign team and I were forced to pull together volunteer observers at the last minute, and did not have time to adequately and fully recruit and train them before counting began," Miller said.

"As a result, an indeterminate number of ballots with candidates' names misspelled were counted without being challenged during the first several days of counting," he said.