Alaska’s Republican-led state government on Saturday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought at President Donald Trump’s direction seeking to block certification of a potential Democratic victory in the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race. The state argued there is “no reason for this Court to entertain this meritless lawsuit any longer.”
The sharply worded filing by Alaska’s attorney general came after U.S. District Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason set a Saturday deadline for arguments on whether the case should be thrown out without a hearing.
The U.S. Department of Justice complaint has drawn widespread criticism from election law experts. It asks the judge to suspend certification of a possible win by Democrat Mary Peltola until officials determine whether voters were confused by a second candidate whose name matched that of her chief opponent, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
On Friday, the Justice Department added a request to segregate all ballots cast for the second Dan Sullivan while determining whether voters had mistakenly used their ballots on a spoiler candidate.
Alaska responded in Saturday’s filing that the proposal was “both disturbing and impossible,” arguing that carrying it out would violate voter privacy.
Trump also called for Peltola to face prosecution after The New York Times reported this week that internal messages and social media posts appeared to indicate the Democratic campaign helped recruit the second Sullivan—a retired schoolteacher from the remote fishing village of Petersburg—to run for office.
Here’s the latest on the ‘Decoy Dan’ controversy surrounding Alaska’s ongoing Senate race:
Still, the state’s filing points out that the two Sullivans are identified differently on the ballot: the senator is listed as a Republican and the incumbent, while the other appears only 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.”
