The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 29 filed a revised lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate results if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses narrowly and votes for a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan would have reversed the outcome.
The amended legal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Alaska comes as residents of that state are already voting early in the Nov. 3 midterm congressional elections. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate; Democrats and independents who caucus with them hold 47 seats.
The revised filing incorporates details from an Oct. 28 report in The New York Times. That report stated that aides to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola worked with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) staff and others on what was internally called a “Ballot Composition Project” to recruit candidates who could draw votes away from the incumbent. The newspaper said the operation helped bring Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg, Alaska, into the race.
In the amended complaint, the DOJ writes that although New York Times reporting is “not always true,” its account “aligns with what the United States has been alleging … [and] also aligns with common sense.”
The filing alleges that Peltola’s team worked to recruit another candidate named Dan Sullivan “to confuse voters” and that the sole purpose of Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy “is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.”
In June, the Alaska Division of Elections investigated the matter and issued a public statement citing “credible allegations” that Daniel J. Sullivan filed to run “with the deliberate intent to confuse Alaska voters.” A state court later allowed the retired teacher to stay on the ballot, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed that ruling.
The DOJ lawsuit names the state, Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, the state’s election boards, and the State Ballot Counting Review Board as defendants.
The DOJ is seeking a declaration that certifying any result affected by voter confusion would violate election officials’ duties under the National Voter Registration Act, as well as an injunction blocking certification in the specific scenario in which Sen. Sullivan loses but would have won if votes for Daniel J. Sullivan had been cast for him instead.
Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC have both denied being involved with either Sullivan campaign.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, on Oct. 29 ordered state officials to investigate whether aides to Peltola worked with national Democrats to recruit spoiler candidates onto the ballot.
Reporting by The New York Times “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates—including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator—to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes,” Dunleavy wrote in a post on X.
Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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