Mara Ruffin Allen’s months-long legal fight to be reinstated as a Jefferson County candidate was dashed with a three-sentence order from a judge who tossed out her case.

Allen, a former candidate for Jefferson County treasurer, was declared ineligible to run for failing to turn in a required financial disclosure form within the deadline after declaring her candidacy to election officials.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Brooke Reid on Friday afternoon ended the case by dismissing Allen’s lawsuit.

“I’m disappointed,” Allen told AL.com. “I tried my best, so I feel good about the fight.”

Allen had been to court multiple times since her disqualification in December, suing the State Ethics Commission, Jefferson County Democratic Chairman Wayne Rogers and Jefferson County Probate Judge James Naftel.

Jefferson County Democratic party leaders last month named Angela Webb Weinberg as the sole candidate for the office of treasurer after the state Ethics Commission disqualified Allen and current treasurer Eyrika Parker for failing to submit their financial disclosure form in time.

Because there are no Republicans seeking the position, the lone Democratic candidate is most likely to win the position in the general election.

Allen, a Bessemer business owner and first-time candidate, told AL.com that Weinberg was wrongly “gifted a seat” that Allen has legitimately sought for months.

“In this instance the people don’t have a say,” she said. “They don’t get to vote.”

Among the duties of the treasurer is to select banks in which to invest millions in county money.

Allen has argued that she was unfairly disqualified and mistreated by the Democratic Party.

“I don’t know what I did to anyone except go to the Democratic Party and run as a committed Democrat,” Allen said.

Allen’s lawyers first argued that she attempted to electronically file the form by the deadline and returned to the system after learning that it was not completed. They later argued that the probate judge, not the chairman of the county’s Democratic Party, was the real elections official, so her paperwork was turned in on time to that office.

Defending Rogers, attorney Adam Plant wrote that Allen’s case was a “fatally flawed complaint,” that went beyond the jurisdiction of the court.

D’Linell Finley, adjunct professor of political science at Alabama State University and a longtime political observer, said the ruling was expected. He called it rare that judges intervene to overturn ethics commission decisions.

“Certainly, if there were any real legal questions, you would think that at least one of them by now would be able to score a legal victory against the ethics commission,” Finley said “The fact that that has not happened shows that the ethics commission had good cause. If you can’t overcome doubts with the court, then you have pretty well muted your own case.”