DOJ Sues to Halt Alaska Senate Certification Over Second Dan Sullivan on Ballot
The Justice Department has sued Alaska to stop the state from certifying its U.S. Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses by a margin smaller than the vote total of a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.
The complaint, filed late Thursday in federal court in Alaska, names the state, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher and the state’s election boards. It was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.
The other candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., is a Petersburg resident and former teacher who filed to run as a Republican. Under a Division of Elections decision, he will appear on the November ballot with no party listed.
The department asks U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason to bar certifying “any result that may be impacted by voter confusion” pending an investigation, Courthouse News reported.
The requested probe would determine “whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan,” according to the filing.
The scenario outlined in the filing is one in which the senator loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, but would have won had all of the second Sullivan’s votes gone to him instead.
“The sole purpose of [Dan J. Sullivan’s] candidacy is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan,” the complaint states.
Trump: ‘I’m the One That Said Do It’
President Trump told reporters Friday that he directed the action. “I’m the one that said do it,” he said, calling the second Sullivan’s candidacy “a disgrace,” NBC News reported.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “we are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot.”
A department spokesperson said the candidacy “was intended to mislead voters” and that the agency is acting under the National Voter Registration Act to ensure “this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Thursday, before the suit was filed, that “it is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process.”
Sullivan’s campaign kept its distance. “We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course,” spokesman Nate Adams said. “Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan’s strong record of delivering for Alaska.”
Peltola called the lawsuit “the corruption AK is fed up with” in a post on X, accusing the senator of “using his DC allies to try to keep himself in power.”
Earlier efforts to remove the second Sullivan failed. Beecher sought to keep him off the ballot, but a state court and the Alaska Supreme Court allowed him to remain.
In the August all-party primary, the senator received more than 68,000 votes while Daniel J. Sullivan received 4,107, according to the AP. Peltola was the top vote-getter.
The candidate has defended his run. “It’s a free country,” he told Courthouse News, adding that “choice is good and voters’ intent will be as varied as the candidates who are running.”
Election law experts were skeptical. Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller wrote that the suit relies on the law’s statement of purposes and that the claim is “so absurdly thin, there’s essentially no likelihood of success.”
David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research called it “an unprecedented intervention by the federal government.”
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and a winner may not be known for weeks after the Nov. 3 election. A measure to repeal that system is also on the ballot.
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