Federal Judge Drops DOJ Bid to Halt Alaska Senate Certification

Alaska’s U.S. Senate race enters its final days with a federal court ruling that clears the way for the results to be certified. On Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. The suit sought to block the certification of the election if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses to Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola. The decision comes with early voting already underway and less than two weeks until the November 3 general election.

The core of the legal dispute involves a retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan. He appears on the ballot with a name nearly identical to the senator’s. The Justice Department argued that an investigation was necessary to determine if voters intended to support the senator but mistakenly selected the retired teacher. Gleason found this request infeasible because many voters have already cast their ballots. She noted that those ballots have been mixed and cannot be matched to specific voters without compromising secrecy.

Gleason wrote that the government provided no workable plan to segregate ballots and conduct the proposed investigation. She stated, “More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy.” The judge concluded that the relief sought ran counter to the Constitution’s grant of election authority to the states.

The state of Alaska, Peltola’s campaign, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee argued the case lacked a legal basis. They contended the lawsuit amounted to federal interference in a state process. Attorneys for the Alaska Department of Law, including Rachel Witty, Margaret Paton Walsh, and Laura Fox, described the federal complaint as meritless. They pointed to the state’s use of ranked-choice voting as a practical solution to any voter confusion.

The state’s attorneys explained that voters can rank the two Sullivans as their first and second choices. If the first-ranked Sullivan is eliminated, the vote transfers to the other Sullivan rather than automatically to Peltola. Witty wrote, “The voter’s vote would not ‘be transferred to Peltola’ as the complaint asserts, unless the voter chose to rank Peltola as his next choice instead of the other Sullivan.”

Political tensions surrounding the race have been high for months. President Donald Trump and Sullivan’s allies portrayed the retired teacher as a sham candidate designed to confuse voters. In June, shortly after entering the race, Daniel J. Sullivan said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign regarding his bid. Peltola’s campaign later stated it had no involvement with either Sullivan campaign. Sullivan said, “I am not interested in tricking voters,” during a recent event.

The Justice Department has continued to press its case through other means. On Thursday, the department escalated a criminal investigation into the same-named candidates. A person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that the DOJ issued a raft of new grand jury subpoenas. The FBI has also begun contacting people who donated to Daniel J. Sullivan. Some of those individuals reported that agents asked if they had been misled about which candidate they were supporting.

State courts had previously rejected Republican-backed efforts to remove the retired teacher from the August primary ballot. He appeared as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. with no party affiliation, while the senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent. Both candidates appear the same way on the general election ballot. Sullivan received about 2.5% of the primary vote, which was enough to secure a spot in the top four for the ranked-choice election.