Justice Department Sues To Block Certification Of Alaska’s Senate Result If The Republican Loses

The Justice Department sued the State of Alaska on Thursday, asking a federal court to bar the state from certifying its U.S. Senate result if Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola while a namesake candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., remains on the ballot. The case, United States v. Alaska, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, 12 days before the November 3 election, and assigned to Judge Sharon L. Gleason.

The complaint asks the court to stop the state from “certifying any result that may be impacted by voter confusion … pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.” Its own test has two parts: the senator does not win, and — had every vote for the namesake been cast for the senator instead, with Alaska’s ranked-choice process played out accordingly — the senator would have won. The suit does not ask to remove the namesake from the ballot; it is aimed at the certification that follows the count. If certification were blocked, Alaska would send no one to be sworn in on January 3, 2027, and the seat would sit vacant.

The department’s legal hook is the National Voter Registration Act: it argues that certifying a result “impacted by voter confusion” would violate the state’s duties under the act to “protect the integrity of the electoral process,” and that the United States is injured when certification of a federal office is “tainted by a frivolous candidacy.” Election-law professor Derek Muller, writing on the Election Law Blog, notes the provision the department relies on is the act’s “findings and purposes” preamble, which he argues places no duties on a state beyond those the statute itself enumerates; he called the argument one of the worst he has seen, and noted that no election has yet happened and that how voters marked their ballots is the best evidence of which Sullivan they meant.

The namesake is a retired teacher from Petersburg, a fishing community in Southeast Alaska, who filed three days before the deadline and says he is running because he is dissatisfied with the senator’s representation. The state’s Division of Elections removed him from the primary ballot in June: Director Carol Beecher concluded the filing was not a good-faith candidacy and was intended “to confuse or mislead” voters, writing that he had asked to appear under a shortened form of his name he had never used before, that his campaign materials resembled the incumbent’s, and that he worked with a consultant she described as a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates. Those are the director’s allegations in her letter. Daniel J. Sullivan has denied trying to confuse voters and denied that the Peltola campaign is behind his candidacy: “It’s a free country. Most Alaskans are proud independents, and it’s my sincere hope that people know who and what they are voting for, but ultimately, choice is good and voters’ intent will be as varied as the candidates who are running.”

A state judge reversed the removal, ruling that nothing in the constitution, state law or division regulations authorized a good-faith disqualification, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed within hours and ordered him listed. To separate the two men, the ballot prints “Incumbent” beside the senator’s name — a first in state history — and shows no party beside the challenger’s, also a first, though he registered as a Republican shortly before filing. In the August 18 primary, Peltola finished first, the senator second and the namesake third; Republican Gerald Heikes holds the fourth general-election slot. Friday’s polling average had Peltola ahead by two points, with the namesake drawing 2 to 5 percent.

The suit followed President Trump’s October 21 Truth Social post accusing Democrats of “putting up another man” with a similar name: “Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING in an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself,” and “Even 1, 2, or 3 percent could make the difference.” The complaint itself alleges that “the sole purpose” of the namesake’s candidacy “is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.” The same day the suit was filed, Attorney General Todd Blanche, in Norfolk, Virginia, declined to rule out the department blocking a certification in a hypothetical “doomsday scenario”: “It is not DOJ’s intention — and it’s never our intention — to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process.”

As of Friday morning, the Division of Elections and all three Senate campaigns had not publicly responded to the suit. Republicans hold the Senate 53–47, 35 seats are on the November 3 ballot, and Democrats need a net gain of four to take the majority; Alaska is one of the few Republican-held seats where the Democratic challenger leads in the polls.

Sources: The Associated Press; the complaint as reported by Democracy Docket, Courthouse News and the Juneau Independent; Election Law Blog.