Federal judge throws out Trump administration lawsuit seeking to block Alaska Senate certification if Sullivan loses
A federal judge in Anchorage has dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking to stop Alaska certifying its Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses, ruling the government had no standing and no workable plan that would preserve voters' right to a secret ballot.
A federal judge in Anchorage has thrown out a lawsuit brought by the Trump administration that sought to prevent Alaska from certifying its United States Senate election if the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan Sullivan, loses on Tuesday. The ruling, handed down on Sunday by US District Judge Sharon Gleason, is the latest courtroom setback for the administration's attempts to intervene in state-run elections in the final days before the midterm vote.
The Justice Department filed the case, United States v. Alaska, on 22 October. It asked the court to bar the state from certifying any Senate result that could have been affected by voter confusion, and to order Alaska to segregate and preserve ballots cast for a second candidate who shares the incumbent's name. That candidate is Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg who is standing as an independent, while the incumbent is Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
Under the government's proposal, certification would have been held up pending an investigation into whether voters who chose Daniel J. Sullivan had actually meant to vote for the senator. Judge Gleason, who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, dismissed the suit in a 20-page order, finding that the United States had failed to establish the standing required to bring the case in the first place.
At the centre of her reasoning was the practical problem with what the government was asking for. Gleason wrote that the United States had provided no workable plan for separating ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on election day and then carrying out a court-ordered investigation of those ballots in a way that would preserve voter secrecy. She held that the court lacked the authority to order ballots to be set aside so that federal law enforcement could investigate the voters who cast them.
The judge also stressed timing. With voting due to conclude on Tuesday, 3 November, she said it was too late for the courts to force such a major change on the eve of an election, and warned that segregating one candidate's ballots would itself risk confusing voters. Alaska election officials had argued in court filings that what the administration was seeking was not only inappropriate but impossible, given Alaskans' vital right to ballot secrecy.
The dispute has its roots in a claim made by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the Democratic challenger, former Representative Mary Peltola, and her campaign recruited Daniel J. Sullivan as a spoiler candidate to confuse voters and siphon votes from the incumbent. Trump has acknowledged that he ordered the Justice Department to file the lawsuit. That recruitment claim has not been proven in any court, and no one in the race has been charged in connection with it.
The race itself is one of the most closely watched of the midterm cycle, because it could help determine which party controls the Senate. Peltola, a Democrat, is attempting to unseat Sullivan, who is seeking re-election, and the presence of a second Sullivan on the ballot has added an unusual twist to an already tight contest. The ballot identifies the candidates' parties and clearly labels Senator Sullivan as the incumbent, a point noted by those opposing the lawsuit.
The ruling does not necessarily end the controversy. The Trump administration may still appeal Gleason's decision, and both the Justice Department and the state of Alaska have opened separate criminal investigations into how Daniel J. Sullivan came to be on the ballot. The Justice Department said on Friday that it was stepping up a criminal inquiry that had been under way for months, while Alaska's Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, has said a state criminal investigation is also taking place.
Sunday's decision follows another defeat for the administration in the courts on Friday, when a federal appeals court rejected a Justice Department demand that California election officials set aside ballots from about 20,000 people the administration claims could be noncitizens. Together, the two rulings mark a significant check on the federal government's efforts to shape how states administer the midterm elections, which are run by the states under the US Constitution.
For Alaska's voters, the immediate effect of the ruling is straightforward: the state's election will proceed as planned, with no court-ordered segregation of ballots and no federally imposed hold on certification. What remains uncertain is whether the administration will appeal before Tuesday, and whether the parallel criminal investigations produce any findings that could change the political argument around the race, even though they cannot, on their own, alter the result that voters deliver at the ballot box.
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