A federal judge in Anchorage has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration that sought to block Alaska from certifying the results of its U.S. Senate election, according to Reuters. The ruling came on Sunday, two days before Alaskans vote in a race seen as pivotal to control of the Senate.
The Department of Justice filed suit on October 22 and 23, arguing that Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan could lose his seat to Democrat Mary Peltola because of confusion caused by a second candidate on the ballot, an independent named Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher. The DOJ claimed that votes meant for the senator may have gone to his namesake instead, and asked the court to block certification if the election was found to be ‘impacted by voter confusion.’
President Donald Trump confirmed he personally ordered the lawsuit. ‘Well, I’m the one that said “do it,”’ he told reporters, according to CNN. He also described the presence of two candidates named Sullivan on the ballot as ‘just cheating.’
No workable plan
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, found that the government had not explained how it could investigate or separate ballots cast for the independent candidate without breaching Alaskans’ constitutional right to a secret ballot.
The absence of any explanation from the United States as to how its requested relief could redress its alleged injury while simultaneously maintaining the secrecy of the ballot is telling. Simply, the Court cannot grant the United States the relief it seeks.
More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy.
Gleason dismissed the case without leave to amend, meaning the Justice Department cannot refile an amended version of the complaint. The DOJ had already revised its case once, adding claims based on a New York Times report alleging that people connected to Peltola’s campaign helped recruit the second Sullivan to run. Democrats and the Peltola campaign denied the claim, calling it baseless.
A test of federal power over state elections
Alaska election officials said they had already designed the ballot to distinguish between the two Sullivans as clearly as possible. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are administered by individual states, not the federal government, and the case has been widely read as a test of how far the Trump administration can push federal involvement in that process.
The dismissal leaves the Alaska Senate race to proceed as scheduled on November 3, with control of the chamber among the stakes in this year’s midterm elections.
This article was researched and drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by Lasse Pedersen before publication. How we use AI
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