Alaska's Republican-led state government asked a federal judge Saturday to throw out, with prejudice, a Trump administration lawsuit that seeks to block certification of the state's U.S. Senate race if GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola.
The state attorney general's office told U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason the case has no merit and that the Justice Department's demands cannot be met without breaching ballot secrecy. Gleason set Saturday as the deadline for arguments on dismissing the suit without a hearing, and she is expected to rule soon, ahead of Tuesday's election.
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.
Alaska attorney general's office
The second Sullivan
The fight centers on a second candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, a retired school teacher from the fishing village of Petersburg. The department sued local election officials on Oct. 22, arguing that his name on the ballot will confuse voters and pull support from the senator, and that certification should wait until any confusion is sorted out.
On Friday, the department added a request to separate every ballot showing a vote for the second Sullivan. State lawyers answered that where ballots are physically stored changes nothing, since anyone could still tell which ones rank him, and that any other meaning would be alarming and unworkable, because it could not be done without violating voter privacy.
Alaska also attacked the department's standing, noting that certification belongs to the states. Federal lawyers point to the preamble of a 1990s voter registration law, saying it makes them responsible for the integrity of federal elections, and describe the suit as an effort to combat fraud in a contest that could decide which party controls the Senate.
The state's filing leans on earlier rulings and on the ballot itself. The Alaska Supreme Court decided this summer that the second Sullivan met all legal requirements to run, and the senator is identified as a Republican and the incumbent, labels the other candidate does not carry. Newly raised questions about how he got there do not alter his legal status, the state argued.
The recruitment allegations
Those questions were added to the federal complaint this week, when the department alleged that Peltola's campaign helped recruit him and that she knew about it. The allegations draw on interviews with a former campaign manager, who later tried to retract her statements, along with texts and contributions from a pro-Peltola political group to an out-of-state Democratic consultant who recruited the candidate.
Peltola denies any involvement. At a rally Friday night, she said the accusations deeply offended her, that she wanted fewer primary candidates rather than more competition, and that she needed no help to beat the senator. Sullivan said in an interview Saturday that she must have known about the effort.
They’re trying to make sure that Alaskans throw away their vote.
Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, Alaska Republican
President Donald Trump has demanded that Peltola be prosecuted, and the Justice Department has announced a criminal investigation and issued a wave of subpoenas. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy condemned the second Sullivan's placement on the ballot and announced a state probe.
Peltola's campaign and voting rights groups have also asked Gleason to dismiss the case, an unusual alignment with state officials. The American Civil Liberties Union warned that the government's theory would let a president use a few words from a statute to block a Senate certification and protect a favored candidate. Election law experts have broadly criticized the complaint.
