Justice Department Sues Alaska: Seeks to Block Senate Result Certification if Incumbent Loses

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alaska on Oct. 22 seeking to block the state from certifying its U.S. Senate election result if incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses. The complaint says another candidate with a nearly identical name, Daniel J. Sullivan, could confuse voters.

Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican who has served as a U.S. senator from Alaska since 2015, faces former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, in the Nov. 3 midterm election. Daniel J. Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher who registered as a Republican this year; on the Alaska ballot he is listed without a party affiliation, while the incumbent is listed as a registered Republican and identified as the incumbent. According to CNN, the incumbent won 68,726 votes in the August primary and Daniel J. Sullivan won 4,107.

The Justice Department alleges in the complaint that Daniel J. Sullivan ran with the intention of misleading the incumbent's supporters and benefiting the Peltola campaign. It asks the court to declare that certifying a result potentially affected by voter confusion would violate the state's duties under the National Voter Registration Act to protect the integrity of the electoral process, and to delay certification pending an investigation into whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for the senator. Daniel J. Sullivan denied in a Wall Street Journal interview last month that he was a Democratic plant.

The same-name dispute was litigated earlier inside Alaska: the state Division of Elections initially kept the challenger off the ballot, the Alaska Supreme Court then approved both Sullivans appearing on the ballot, and an Alaska Republican Party effort to remove him during the primary failed. Neither the Division of Elections nor the Peltola campaign had publicly responded to the federal lawsuit. Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, called the Justice Department's legal argument one of the worst he has ever seen. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, with the top four primary finishers advancing to the general election, and the seat is viewed as one that could help decide control of the Senate. (GSM, based on reporting by USA Today, CNN and The Wall Street Journal)

Daniel J. Sullivan also changed his party registration between the primary and the general election and is listed on the ballot as unaffiliated. Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller added that the department's legal theory, "like many Department letters over the last few years, is designed to win the press release rather than the litigation."

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：位于 Juneau 的阿拉斯加州议会大厦，阿拉斯加州选举事务由州选举部门负责。照片：Matt Howry，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. Photo: Matt Howry, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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