Legal experts say Alaska Senate certification suit has no chance of success

The proposed voter-confusion inquiry does not explain how it would work

Even if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, legal experts said the Justice Department’s Alaska certification suit had “no chance of success.” Its central theory rests on a clause in the preamble to the National Voter Registration Act stating that states must “protect the integrity” of elections. The Justice Department argues that this language gives federal courts grounds to overturn election outcomes, even though elections are entirely state affairs under the U.S. Constitution. Experts said the vague phrase probably would not give a judge a basis to try to overrule the will of voters.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in federal court Thursday and asks the court to block certification of Alaska’s election results if Dan Sullivan loses. The case is essentially a placeholder at this stage and becomes relevant only after Election Day if the incumbent loses. President Donald Trump said Friday that he had directed the filing. The Associated Press described the move as the Trump administration’s first step to block the results of a midterm election.

The filing does not explain how its proposed inquiry could work. Technically, it asks the court to block certification until an investigation determines whether enough voters were fooled by the two Sullivans to have swung the election. The Associated Press highlighted that omission as a major problem because votes are supposed to be confidential.

The Associated Press reported that Alaska’s Senate ballot includes two men named Dan Sullivan and former Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate. The incumbent, Dan Sullivan, is a Republican senator and Trump ally. The other, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., is a retired schoolteacher who lives in Petersburg, a tiny fishing community, and says he is running of his own accord. On ballots, “Dan S. Sullivan” is identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent,” while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” has no party affiliation.

Republicans accuse Daniel J. Sullivan of being a Democratic plant intended to siphon away votes. They have tried for months to remove him from the ballot, taking the effort to the Alaska Supreme Court, where they lost. The Associated Press reported that Republicans think his presence is a “Democratic dirty trick.”

Republicans have said they worry that voters will confuse the candidates and accidentally vote for the wrong Sullivan. The campaign is likely to be decided by only a few thousand votes and could determine which party controls the Senate.

“Should Alaska certify any electoral results tainted by the inclusion on the ballot of Daniel J. Sullivan,” the lawsuit said, “the State and its officers will fail in its obligation to protect the integrity of its election.” Trump said of the lawsuit: “I’m the one who said do it.”

The Associated Press noted that voter confusion and election tactics are not new to American politics. In Ohio’s Senate race, the AP said Republicans had been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted. What the AP said was new was the Justice Department’s attempt to block an election result.

Trump previously wanted the Justice Department to help him try to overturn his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden, but career attorneys stopped the effort, the Associated Press reported. The AP said most of those career attorneys have since been replaced by Trump loyalists.

The Associated Press reported that Stanley Woodward, the top Justice Department official who signed onto the lawsuit, previously served as a defense attorney for those prosecuted for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The AP said there had been widespread concern that Trump would try to “nullify the voters’ will” in November. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asked about that concern in Virginia on Thursday, said he did not want to rule out intervening in some sort of “doomsday” scenario. But he said, “it is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process.” The department filed its lawsuit over Alaska’s certification process hours later Thursday.