Politics
Trump says he personally directed DOJ’s challenge to Alaska election rules
President Donald Trump said he instructed the Justice Department to sue Alaska over a Senate ballot that includes two candidates named Dan Sullivan. The lawsuit seeks to block certification in certain close-election scenarios, an unusual federal intervention in a state-run election.
President Donald Trump said Friday he personally directed the Justice Department to sue Alaska election officials over the state’s Senate ballot, which lists both Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and an independent candidate with the same first and last name.
“I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters after arriving in Florida on Oct. 23, a day after the department filed its lawsuit.
The federal complaint argues that the independent candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan, could confuse voters seeking to support the incumbent, Daniel S. Sullivan. It asks the court to prevent Alaska from certifying the results if the Republican loses by a margin small enough that votes for the independent could have changed the outcome.
The race also features Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola and is among the contests that could help determine which party controls the Senate. The lawsuit represents an unusual effort by the federal government to intervene in how a state administers and certifies an election.
Alaska’s Supreme Court ruled in June that the independent Sullivan could remain on the ballot. Trump has continued to criticize the candidacy and Alaska’s election rules. Speaking Friday, he called the independent a “fake” and suggested Democrats had put him forward to siphon votes from the incumbent, but offered no evidence for those claims.
The dispute places the state’s election administration and voter choice at the center of a high-stakes federal court fight. The Justice Department’s complaint says the two candidates’ names could undermine voters’ intent; Alaska’s highest court had already allowed both candidates to appear on the ballot.