State says separating second-Sullivan ballots would violate voter privacy
Alaska’s Republican-run state government on Saturday urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed at President Donald Trump’s direction that seeks to stop certification of a possible Democratic win in the state’s U.S. Senate race, writing that there is “no reason for this Court to entertain this meritless lawsuit any longer.”
The filing came from the state’s attorney general’s office as the Saturday deadline arrived that U.S. District Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason had set for arguments over whether she should dismiss the case without even a hearing.
The Justice Department complaint has been roundly criticized by election law experts.
The complaint demands that Gleason halt certification of a possible win by Democrat Mary Peltola until it is determined whether voters were confused by the presence of a second candidate on the ballot with the same name as her main rival, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
On Friday, the department added a request that the judge separate all ballots showing votes for the second Dan Sullivan. The department told the court the separation was needed until it can be determined whether voters were fooled into wasting their votes for a spoiler candidate.
Alaska addressed that request directly in its Saturday filing, calling it “both disturbing and impossible.” The state said there would be no way to carry out the separation without violating voter privacy.
The dispute escalated this week after Trump demanded that Peltola be prosecuted. His demand followed a New York Times report that internal texts and posts appear to show the Democratic candidate’s campaign was involved in recruiting the second Sullivan onto the ballot. The second Sullivan is a retired school teacher in the remote fishing village of Petersburg.
The state’s filing pushed back on the premise of the confusion claim, noting that the two Sullivans are distinguished from each other on the ballot: the senator is listed as a Republican and the incumbent, while the other appears simply as “Daniel J. Sullivan.”
“State officials carefully designed the ballot to minimize voter confusion,” Alaska officials wrote. “The Court should immediately dismiss this lawsuit with prejudice and allow state officials to conduct the general election — including ballot counting and certification — free from unwarranted federal interference.”