From Elizabeth Bluemink in Anchorage --

State election regulators have rejected a complaint that Gov. Sarah Palin broke the law last year when she took a position on a controversial ballot initiative on mining.

The complaint, filed by a Bristol Bay lodge owner, involved Measure 4, the "Clean Water" initiative that attempted to create tougher pollution discharge requirements for large mines. Alaska voters defeated the proposed law on August 26.

Election regulators agreed last year with the first issue raised in the lodge owner’s complaint: They said a state Web site launched to educate voters on Measure 4 was biased against the proposed law and they ordered some revisions. But they didn’t take any action until Friday on the Palin-related filings in the case. The lodge owner, Brian Kraft, said it was wrong and illegal for Palin to announce six days before the election, with TV cameras rolling, that she would "vote no" on Measure 4.

The Alaska Public Offices Commission issued a written order Friday saying that "it is concerned with the free speech implications of a ruling that attempts to regulate what the Governor can say."

The commission said, "Here, the Governor’s statement was made in response to a question at a press conference, and we presume, absent contrary evidence, that she spoke as part of her usual and customary duties — not to influence the outcome of the election."

State law says that public officials should not use their funds to influence the outcome of a ballot measure unless the Alaska Legislature or a local government previously appropriated money to influence that vote.