DOJ Sues to Block Alaska Senate Certification If GOP Incumbent Dan Sullivan Loses

The Trump administration's Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on October 23 seeking to preemptively block Alaska from certifying the results of its U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. The suit argues that the presence of a second candidate on the ballot named Daniel J. Sullivan is likely to confuse voters and taint the results, and asks a court to potentially delay certification in that scenario.

Alaska's Elections Director Carol Beecher had previously found that the second Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy appeared to be "for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters and compromising the fairness" of the ballot, language the DOJ cited in its filing. Election law experts called the legal theory behind the suit "strange and unusual," with Notre Dame Law professor Derek Muller noting it was also unclear on a practical level how a court could act on such a claim.

The Alaska Senate race is one of a handful of contests that could determine whether Republicans retain their slim majority in the U.S. Senate. The lawsuit is the latest instance of the Trump Justice Department seeking to insert itself into state-level election administration, a role the Constitution leaves largely to the states.