DOJ Asks Court to Bar Alaska Senate Certification if Sullivan Loses, Citing a Voter Registration Law's Purpose Clause

A federal lawsuit filed October 22 asks a judge to stop Alaska from certifying its U.S. Senate result in two situations: if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, or if he would have won had every vote cast for a different candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., gone to him under ranked-choice counting. NBC News described the relief that way, and the Peltola campaign's own filing says the case seeks to block certification only if Democrat Mary Peltola wins.

What the complaint asks the court to do

The defendants are Alaska election officials, and the case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, according to Yahoo News. The Justice Department's theory, as NBC reported it, is that Daniel J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot could mislead voters who meant to support the incumbent, Dan S. Sullivan. Its requested remedy is conditional: certification would be held up pending an investigation of whether votes for the challenger were meant for the senator.

Al Jazeera reported that the department rests the case on the findings-and-purposes section of the National Voter Registration Act. That section, 52 U.S.C. 20501(b), lists four purposes for the law, and one of them is "to protect the integrity of the electoral process." The other three concern registration procedures and voter rolls, and nothing in the text of that section mentions candidate names or ballot design.

“So absurdly thin.”

Muller told Al Jazeera the law does not address which candidates appear on a ballot, and that the argument has essentially no likelihood of success. He also questioned the timing, since the same-name dispute has been public for months and the suit arrived less than two weeks before the November 3 election. This report could not retrieve the complaint itself, so every description of it here comes from news coverage.

How a second Dan Sullivan got on the ballot

In June, the Alaska Division of Elections ruled that Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. was ineligible, saying his filing was made "for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters," per Yahoo News. State courts reversed that, and he ran in the August primary, finishing third with 2.5 percent. Peltola took 49.5 percent and the incumbent 41.4 percent, a gap of about eight points, more than three times the size of the challenger's share.

Al Jazeera describes Sullivan Jr. as a retired elementary schoolteacher and former Forest Service employee from Petersburg, in southeastern Alaska. NBC reported in July, citing two sources, that federal and state investigators were examining a possible conspiracy around his candidacy. He has denied being part of a plot to confuse voters, and Yahoo noted that no public evidence ties Democratic groups to his run. The incumbent's campaign blamed Democrats anyway.

The arguments on each side

Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asked the court to dismiss the suit, calling it "an unprecedented pre-emptive strike on democratic elections," NBC reported. Their motion says the department's assumption that Sullivan Jr.'s voters meant to pick the incumbent is "insulting to voters" and clashes with how Alaska's ranked-choice system works. In that system, if no one clears 50 percent of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those ballots move to each voter's next ranking, and ballots with no further ranking simply stop counting.

Not every outside expert dismisses the premise. Forrest Nabors, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, told Al Jazeera the similar names could matter in a close result and that federal action can be justified if an election is run unfairly, though he called the intervention unusual. Glenn Wright of the University of Alaska Southeast answered that the ballots are "super, super, super clear," because the incumbent is labeled "Sullivan, Dan S (Registered Republican) Incumbent" and the challenger carries no party label. President Trump said he directed the Justice Department to pursue a challenge over voter confusion, the Washington Examiner reported. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asked on two Sunday programs whether Trump ordered the filing, declined to detail how it came about.

What happens next

NBC reported that no hearing date has been set, and that experts told it the case sits on shaky ground because states run and certify elections and federal law limits the department's role. Early voting has started. Polls show Peltola ahead by about two points, per Yahoo, and the Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up. Republicans hold 53 of 100 Senate seats, and Democrats need a net gain of four for a majority.

One comparison is missing. None of the coverage gives a count of earlier Justice Department suits seeking to hold up a state's certification before an election, so how unusual this is can only be judged from the experts' word, not a number.