DOJ sues to block Alaska Senate result if Peltola wins

The U.S. Justice Department sued Alaska late Thursday to bar the state from certifying its Nov. 3 U.S. Senate result if Democrat Mary Peltola beats Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan while a second candidate named Dan Sullivan stays on the ballot.

The suit, filed 11 days before the election, marks an unusual attempt by the federal government to shape the outcome of a Senate race before a single vote is counted. President Donald Trump said Friday he ordered it, The Associated Press reported.

“I’m the one that said, ‘do it,'” Trump said Friday as he landed in Florida for a campaign rally, according to the AP.

The complaint, United States v. State of Alaska, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and assigned to Judge Sharon Gleason, the Alaska Beacon reported. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Anchorage-based assistant U.S. attorney E. Bryan Wilson are listed as the government’s lawyers. The defendant is the Alaska Division of Elections. Dan J. Sullivan, the second candidate, is not a defendant.

The Justice Department asks the court to stop the division from certifying a Peltola win until an investigation determines how many voters were confused, the Beacon reported. The complaint calls Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy “frivolous” and says it was meant only to confuse voters and help Peltola. The Beacon said the federal claim rests on the preamble of the National Voter Registration Act, which says the law’s purpose is to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.”

Dan J. Sullivan, who lives in Petersburg, Alaska, has said he chose to run on his own. He declined immediate comment Friday, saying the suit surprised him and he was still analyzing it, the Beacon reported. Republicans have called him a plant meant to draw votes from the incumbent.

The dispute has already been through the state courts. The Division of Elections removed Dan J. Sullivan from the primary ballot in June, a state trial judge overturned that decision, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the ruling on June 29, the Beacon reported. Judge Thomas Matthews wrote that the claim he sought to confuse voters “is not supported by a preponderance of evidence.”

In the August primary, Peltola received 49.5 per cent of the vote, Sen. Dan Sullivan 41.4 per cent and Dan J. Sullivan 2.5 per cent, according to the Beacon. The AP put Dan J. Sullivan’s total at 4,107 votes and the incumbent’s at more than 68,000. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and voters can rank both men. The AP said both parties expect a tight race and that a winner could take weeks to emerge.

Legal experts were sharply critical. Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, said “the legal argument is one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen,” the Beacon reported. He told the AP the statute “simply doesn’t let the Department of Justice enjoin certification” and that he expected the case to be dismissed or mooted. Libby Bakalar, a former Alaska state elections attorney, called the argument “laughably bad,” the Beacon reported.

Sen. Sullivan’s campaign took a cautious line. Spokesman Nate Adams said, “We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course.” A person affiliated with the campaign told the Beacon that Sullivan did not ask the Justice Department to file and was surprised by it.

Peltola, a former one-term congresswoman, called the suit a “blatant, despicable political threat” in a Substack post, the AP reported. Harry Child, a spokesperson for her campaign, called it “a despicable political threat to overturn an election,” the Beacon reported.

Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Thursday that the department does not intend to improperly interfere with elections or certification, the AP reported. He said a challenge to midterm certification in California was unlikely, though possible in a “doomsday” scenario. The department sued California earlier this month over about 20,000 voters it believes could be noncitizens. California has said many of them are citizens.

Trump has long criticized Alaska’s ranked-choice system. He told a rally in Wasilla on Oct. 13 that he wanted to ensure “there’s no cheating,” the Beacon reported.

What happens next is a ruling from Judge Gleason on whether the case can proceed. No hearing date had been reported by Friday evening. Election Day is Nov. 3.

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Via The Associated Press and the Alaska Beacon.