Attorney General Todd Blanche said Saturday that the Justice Department's lawsuit over Alaska's U.S. Senate race "does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska's election," The Hill reported. In a social media post, he wrote that the case is meant to make sure ballots are preserved after they are cast, so that Alaska's own officials have the information they need to decide whether voters were confused or misled.
He added that department lawyers wrote the complaint and that the department "did not coordinate with any campaign or candidate, but rather relied solely on federal law," according to Newsweek.
The complaint itself, filed late Thursday against the state, elections director Carol Beecher, the state's election boards and its ballot counting review board, asks that under specified conditions the Senate result not be certified "pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan." It argues that the candidacy of Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg, threatens to mislead Alaskans who want to vote for the Republican incumbent.
President Trump said Friday that the case was his call. "I'm the one that said do it," he told reporters as he landed for a campaign rally in Florida.
The request is conditional. It would apply only if the senator does not win and, in the department's words, "had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan and Alaska's rank-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election."
In a statement on Friday, the department said it was acting "consistent with the National Voter Registration Act enacted by Congress" to "ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska's election or the will of its voters." It noted that Alaska's own election officials, who are Republicans, had concluded that the challenger's campaign was an attempt to mislead voters.
The state's effort to act on that conclusion failed. The Division of Elections disqualified Daniel J. Sullivan in June, with its director declaring that he had filed "with a purpose to confuse or mislead," but a state court and then the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that he could stay on the ballot. He has rejected any suggestion that he is working with Democrats and says he entered the race because he is dissatisfied with the incumbent's record. In a text message on Friday, he said he had "no comment for now."
The ballot itself separates the two men. The senator is listed as "Sullivan, Dan S." with the label "(Registered Republican) Incumbent," while the challenger, a former member of the Alaskan Independence Party who switched his registration to Republican shortly before entering the race, appears as "Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr." with no party label.
The seat could decide control of the Senate. In the August primary, Mary Peltola, the Democratic former congresswoman, took 49.5 percent of the vote to the senator's 41.4 percent, and Daniel J. Sullivan drew 4,107 votes, about 2.5 percent. Early voting is underway for the Nov. 3 election. If no candidate wins a majority of first choices, the state will run its ranked choice tabulation on Nov. 18, eliminating last-place candidates and passing their ballots to each voter's next choice. Once Daniel J. Sullivan is eliminated, ballots that ranked the senator next would count for the incumbent.
Sullivan's campaign said it had "no prior knowledge of this lawsuit and no role in it." "We'll let the DOJ complaint run its course," said Nate Adams, a campaign spokesman. Carmela Warfield, who chairs the Alaska Republican Party, commended the administration for bringing the case. "A candidacy that trades on voter confusion only makes the problem worse and highlights the failures of this voting scheme," she said.
Others were blunt in opposition. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's other Republican senator, said the state had "already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year's ballot" and added, "The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit." Peltola called the suit "interference and very corrupt." Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, called it a "sham lawsuit."
Election law scholars doubt it will get far. "The statute simply doesn't let the Department of Justice enjoin certification," Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, told the Associated Press, adding that the case could be mooted by a wide Democratic victory or a narrow Republican one and would otherwise likely be dismissed next month. Michael Morley of Florida State University told Votebeat that the suit grows out of "real, valid, recognized concerns about a bad-faith sham candidate" but is "frivolous and will be quickly dismissed." A senator who loses narrowly, he said, would do better to file an election contest with the Senate, which judges its own members' elections. Ilya Somin of George Mason University said any law suppressing candidates over potential voter confusion would violate the First Amendment.
Blanche made a similar point on Thursday, before the suit was filed. "It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process," he told reporters in Virginia. The complaint was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.
The case is before Judge Sharon L. Gleason of the federal district court in Alaska, and the court docket checked Saturday evening listed no ruling. On Friday the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Alaskans for Mary moved to intervene, as did the League of Women Voters of Alaska, Common Cause and two individuals, while Thomas A. Lamb asked permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the department's request.
The suit also leaves Alaska in an unusual position. The state argued in its own courts that Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy was not made in good faith, and as a defendant it must now decide how to respond to a federal request built on that same concern, the Anchorage Daily News noted. Sam Curtis, a spokesman for the state Department of Law, said, "The complaint is being reviewed, and we do not have any comment on the litigation."