Judge Throws Out Justice Department Bid to Block Alaska Senate Certification in ‘Second Sullivan’ Ballot Case

A federal judge in Alaska has thrown out the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to have ballots cast for a second candidate named Dan Sullivan segregated and investigated two days before Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the case on Sunday, 1 November, ruling that the federal government had no standing to force Alaska to change how it counts and certifies votes, and that the remedy it demanded was unworkable. The decision, set out in a 20-page order, removes the immediate federal-court threat to Alaska’s certification process in a race that could help decide which party controls the Senate, according to the Associated Press.

“The Court cannot grant the United States the relief it seeks,” Gleason wrote, finding that the department had failed to explain how its proposed remedy could work while preserving Alaska voters’ right to a secret ballot.

Shortly after the ruling, the Justice Department filed a notice saying it would appeal. “Alaskan voters deserve a fair election, not to be misled in an attempt to rig outcomes,” a department spokesperson said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

The ruling came in United States v. State of Alaska, No. 3:26-cv-00376, a lawsuit the department filed on 22 October, less than two weeks before the election and while early voting was already under way. The case centred on Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg who is running as an independent in Tuesday’s ranked-choice election and who shares the first and last name of the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan.

The department had asked the court to bar Alaska from certifying the result if the senator lost but would have won had every vote for Daniel J. Sullivan gone to him instead, pending an investigation into what voters who ranked the retired teacher actually intended. It also asked the court to order the state to preserve and segregate ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan so that investigators could examine them. In an amended complaint filed on 29 October, the department added a claim under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

President Donald Trump has said he ordered the lawsuit. He has repeatedly described Daniel J. Sullivan as a “sham candidate” and has called for the Democratic challenger, former U.S. Representative Mary Peltola, to be prosecuted and removed from the ballot. The New York Times reported in the week before Election Day that aides to Peltola had been involved in recruiting the retired teacher to run, in what the newspaper described as a “ballot composition project.” Peltola’s campaign has denied any involvement, and Daniel J. Sullivan himself said shortly after entering the race in June that he had had no contact with her campaign about running.

Gleason’s order dismantled the government’s case on practical as well as legal grounds. She wrote that the relief the United States sought was “infeasible” because many Alaskans had already cast their ballots, and that those ballots had been separated from identifying information and mixed together to the point where they could no longer be matched to specific voters.

“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,” she wrote.

The judge also held that the administration’s attempt to block certification ran counter to the Constitution, which gives states the authority to run elections, and she cited the Supreme Court’s Purcell principle, under which federal courts should generally not change election rules close to an election. Such late-breaking changes, she wrote, are “strongly disfavored.”

She added that voters would in fact be confused if Alaska segregated Daniel J. Sullivan’s ballots as the department sought. “Clearly, if this Court were to order that certain ballots will be segregated and subject to a future and as yet unspecified investigation by law enforcement, it would likely result in voter ‘confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,’” Gleason wrote, according to the Associated Press.

Alaska’s lawyers had asked Gleason to dismiss the lawsuit immediately, and the state had argued that there was no way to determine what voters intended without violating voter privacy. Attorneys for the Alaska Department of Law called the federal government’s complaint “meritless” in a scathing response. Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which intervened in the case, argued that it lacked any legal basis and amounted to election interference. The state also told the court it had taken “significant steps” to distinguish the two Sullivans on the ballot, and that voters who remained unsure could ask for help or consult candidate biographies in election pamphlets distributed by the state.

Gleason had fast-tracked the case, ordering the department to respond to the motions to dismiss by Friday, 30 October, and allowing replies by noon on Saturday, 31 October. Alaska’s election officials had asked for a ruling by Monday, 2 November, the day before Election Day. The judge ruled a day early.

What the Justice Department asked for

The department’s lawsuit was built on a single, unusual fact: two men named Dan Sullivan are on Alaska’s Senate ballot. The incumbent is listed as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent,” while the retired teacher appears as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.” with no party affiliation. Both men will appear the same way on Tuesday’s general election ballot.

The department argued that the presence of the second Sullivan could confuse voters and siphon support from the senator, and it told the judge during the week that the retired teacher was “a sham candidate.” Its complaint asked the court to prevent certification of “any result that may be impacted by voter confusion” — in practice, a race the senator loses but would have won with his namesake’s votes — while an investigation determined whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for Senator Sullivan.

The original claim rested on the National Voter Registration Act, a law about registering voters. The amended complaint added a second claim under the Supremacy Clause, arguing that federal law overrode the state’s handling of the race. Gleason found that neither claim gave the court power to order the relief sought. She ruled that the government had failed to establish the redressability requirement for Article III standing — in plain terms, that a court order could not fix the injury the government claimed — and she denied the department leave to amend its complaint, finding that another rewrite would be futile because the court lacked authority to order ballots segregated for a federal law-enforcement investigation into voters’ intent, according to Democracy Docket.

The department, in its statement announcing the appeal, said the judge had dismissed the case on procedural grounds but had not disputed the government’s argument that Daniel J. Sullivan entered the race “as a frivolous candidate to confuse voters.” That distinction matters: the ruling does not decide whether the retired teacher was recruited, or whether anyone acted improperly. It decides only that the federal courts cannot deliver the remedy the department demanded, on the timetable it demanded, without breaking the secrecy of the ballot.

How the second Sullivan got on the ballot

The controversy has been building since the summer. On 15 June, the Alaska Division of Elections found that Daniel J. Sullivan’s declaration of candidacy had been filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead” voters and moved to keep him off the ballot. The state’s Superior Court overturned that decision on 26 June, and the Alaska Supreme Court followed on 29 June, clearing the way for the retired teacher to stand. By the time the Justice Department sued in October, the question of his eligibility had already been litigated and settled in the state courts, a point the state and the intervening voter groups pressed hard: the federal lawsuit, they argued, was an attempt to reopen a dispute that Alaska’s own courts had resolved months earlier.

In August’s open primary, Peltola finished first with 49.5 per cent of the vote, followed by Senator Sullivan on 41.4 per cent. Daniel J. Sullivan took about 2.5 per cent — enough to finish in the top four and qualify for Tuesday’s ranked-choice general election, in which voters rank candidates in order of preference and a second choice is counted only if a voter’s first choice is eliminated. A fourth candidate, who has done little campaigning, completes the field.

The New York Times report in the week before the election, which said Peltola’s aides had helped recruit the retired teacher, transformed a local ballot oddity into a national story. Peltola responded at a campaign event: “I am not interested in tricking voters.” Her campaign said it had no involvement in the campaigns for either Sullivan. Daniel J. Sullivan, who had said in June that he had no contact with her campaign, has not responded to multiple messages over the past few days, according to the Associated Press.

On Sunday, President Trump posted on social media: “The Fake Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr., has DISAPPEARED! Nobody can find him, including Law Enforcement.” Senator Sullivan, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union earlier on Sunday, said he expected the second Sullivan to cost him heavily. “I’m sure I’m going to lose a lot of votes to that trickery,” he said. He also cast doubt on Peltola’s denial, saying: “There is no way this went on for a year that they weren’t informing her. She got caught lying, and she’s still lying to the Alaskan people, the media, to all of us.”

Those claims remain unproven in any court, and no candidate or campaign official has been charged with any offence. The Associated Press has noted that Republicans, including some working with President Trump, also have a long history of backing decoy candidates in elections.

The criminal investigation continues

Gleason’s ruling ends the civil case, but it does not end the investigations into how Daniel J. Sullivan came to run. The Justice Department has been running a criminal investigation into the alleged recruitment for months, and it escalated the inquiry in the days before the ruling, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The FBI has also begun contacting people who donated to the retired teacher, some of whom told the Associated Press that agents were asking whether they had been misled about which candidate they were supporting.

U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman has confirmed that the criminal investigation has been running for months, with a “surge” of FBI resources and several prosecutors assigned. No targets have been named, no crime has been specified, and no charges have been filed, according to Reuters.

Alaska’s Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, ordered the state Department of Public Safety to investigate on 28 October and has suggested he may not certify a possible Peltola victory, depending on the results of the inquiry. That threat now sits alongside a federal court ruling that the state, not Washington, runs its elections — and a governor who has publicly raised the possibility of refusing to certify the outcome his own state’s voters deliver.

The ruling also does not resolve the separate question of whether campaign operatives acted improperly. What it does resolve, for now, is the mechanics of Tuesday: Alaska will proceed under its existing ranked-choice rules unless an appeals court intervenes, and the ballots already cast will be counted as cast.

Reactions to the ruling

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which intervened to defend the state’s position, welcomed the decision. “Today’s ruling is a victory for democracy and a clear message to Donald Trump and Senate Republicans: No one, no matter how powerful, can toss out free and fair elections just because they don’t like the result,” said the committee’s executive director, Devan Barber.

Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, which filed a brief supporting dismissal, called the decision “a big win for the voters in Alaska.” “The law is clear, and the DOJ’s case was a baseless, eleventh hour attempt to hijack this midterm election,” she said.

The Justice Department’s appeal keeps the legal fight alive, but the calendar is now its enemy. The Ninth Circuit would have to act with extraordinary speed to change anything before polls close on Tuesday, and the department has not said whether it will seek emergency relief. As of Sunday afternoon, no appeal had been reported in the hours immediately after the ruling, although the department’s notice of appeal followed shortly afterwards, according to the Associated Press.

Senator Sullivan’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling, according to the Associated Press.

A wider pattern of pre-election court fights

The Alaska decision was the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the Trump administration’s efforts to intervene in state election processes in the final days of the midterm campaign, according to CNN. On Friday, a federal appeals court rejected a Justice Department demand that California election officials set aside ballots from 20,000 people the administration claims could be noncitizens. The department has sued California and about 30 other states seeking access to voter rolls, and a federal judge on Friday ordered it to stop threatening California officials.

Late on Friday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson imposed a sweeping emergency order restricting the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security from demanding that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls, or halt ballot processing. Judge Thompson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, also ruled that the administration cannot “threaten, intimidate or coerce” election officials to demand changes in ballot processing procedures on claims that voters are ineligible. The Justice Department has appealed that ruling as well.

Taken together, the three rulings — in Alaska, California and the nationwide Thompson order — form a consistent judicial message delivered within about 48 hours of the election: the federal executive cannot rewrite state election procedures on the eve of voting, cannot order ballots set aside on unproven claims, and cannot threaten the officials who run the count. The courts have not ruled on the underlying fraud claims themselves. They have ruled, repeatedly, that the way the administration went about pursuing them was unlawful or unworkable.

The pattern is all the more striking because the administration’s election-related litigation is not confined to Alaska. The Justice Department has spent the final weeks of the campaign pressing states for voter data, demanding ballot segregation, and warning local officials of criminal penalties. The courts, in three separate decisions in three days, have now pushed back on each front.

The midterm stakes

Tuesday’s election will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 Senate seats, 36 governorships and thousands of state and local offices. Republicans currently hold the Senate 53-47 and the House 218-214, and the Alaska race is one of a handful that could determine which party controls the Senate for the final two years of President Trump’s term.

Polling published on Sunday showed Democrats narrowly ahead in several of the most competitive Senate contests. In Texas, Democratic State Representative James Talarico led Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by 1.4 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls cited by USA Today. In Michigan, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed led former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers by 3.5 points, and in Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson led five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins by 1.7 points. All three margins sit within the margin of error of many surveys, and Republican strategists say their own data shows a more competitive picture.

The Cook Political Report, a respected election forecaster, shifted more than a dozen congressional races towards the Democrats on 30 October, suggesting the party could win its largest House majority in more than a decade, according to USA Today. President Trump’s approval rating, meanwhile, stands at 36 per cent, according to the New York Times poll tracker — the lowest for any president heading into a midterm election in 80 years, with 61 per cent disapproving.

More than 49 million Americans had already cast their ballots before Election Day, according to the University of Florida Election Lab, a record for a midterm, with particularly sharp increases in states hosting competitive Senate races. In Texas, more than 6.3 million people had voted early as of Wednesday, compared with 4.2 million at the same point four years ago, according to an Associated Press analysis. CNN reported that more than 50 million voters had cast ballots by Sunday.

The final weekend also produced its own political theatre. In Michigan, Representative Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic Senate primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Republican nominee Mike Rogers on Sunday after appearing with him at a church service, heightening tensions in the tight battleground race. President Trump campaigned on Sunday in Iowa and Kansas, two traditionally conservative states where competitive contests have emerged, and in a preview of a New York Post podcast interview he warned that he would become “Mr. Veto” if Democrats win control of Congress. “I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto,” he said. “I’m not going to let them ruin it.” He has vetoed two bills during his second term, compared with 10 during his first.

Alaska’s own count will take days. Under the state’s ranked-choice system, ballots are tabulated in rounds, with the lowest-ranked candidate eliminated and their supporters’ second choices redistributed until one candidate passes 50 per cent. The share taken by Daniel J. Sullivan — and where his voters ranked Senator Sullivan second — could matter a great deal in a race this close.

Analysis: Why It Matters

1. The ruling turned on standing, not on the merits

The most important thing to understand about Gleason’s order is what it did not decide. It did not find that Daniel J. Sullivan was a legitimate candidate, or that he was a decoy. It did not clear Peltola’s campaign of the recruitment alleged in the New York Times report, and it did not find that the report was wrong. The Justice Department itself was quick to point this out, saying the judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds without disputing its argument that the retired teacher entered the race to confuse voters.

What the judge decided was narrower and, in its own way, more consequential: that the federal government could not show a court could fix the problem it described. Standing requires a plaintiff to show an injury that a court order can actually redress. The department could not do that, because the ballots it wanted investigated have already been cast, stripped of identifying information and mixed with every other ballot. No order can un-mix them. No investigation can ask a voter what they meant without first identifying them, and identifying them would break the secrecy of the ballot. The case failed not because the underlying allegation was proved false, but because the remedy was impossible. That is a distinction the administration’s supporters will stress, and its critics will dismiss — but it is the distinction on which the case was decided, and it is why the criminal investigation, which works by different rules and different powers, remains the live thread.

2. Ballot secrecy proved to be a hard limit

The secret ballot is one of the oldest protections in democratic voting, and Gleason’s order is a reminder of why it is also one of the most rigid. Alaska separates a voter’s identity from their ballot before counting, precisely so that no one — not a campaign, not a prosecutor, not a judge — can later reconstruct who voted for whom. The department’s plan required exactly that reconstruction: find the ballots that ranked Daniel J. Sullivan, then investigate the people who cast them.

The judge’s answer was that there is no version of that plan that preserves secrecy. Either the ballots stay anonymous and the investigation is impossible, or the ballots are identified and secrecy is gone. There is no middle path, and the department offered none. That matters beyond Alaska, because the same logic applies to the administration’s demands in other states: any order to segregate ballots by how they were marked, so that the voters behind them can be investigated, runs into the same wall. The Thompson order on Friday made the same point nationally. Secrecy is not a technicality the government can work around; it is the design of the system, and a court cannot order officials to break it.

3. The calendar did as much work as the law

Gleason’s reliance on the Purcell principle — the Supreme Court’s instruction that federal courts should avoid changing election rules close to an election — deserves attention, because it reveals how much of this case was about timing. The department filed suit on 22 October, after early voting had begun and nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court settled the retired teacher’s eligibility. It asked for a ruling by 2 November, the day before the election, and for relief that would have required Alaska to redesign its counting process with hours to spare.

The courts’ reluctance here is not partisan; it is practical. Changing the rules of an election while people are already voting creates exactly the confusion the department said it wanted to prevent. Voters who have already cast ballots cannot be told the rules have changed. Election workers cannot be retrained overnight. And a last-minute court order that singles out one candidate’s ballots for investigation would, as Gleason wrote, likely discourage people from voting at all. The lesson for any future litigant is blunt: if you want a court to change how an election is run, file in June, not in the final fortnight.

4. Three rulings in three days form a pattern

Read in isolation, the Alaska ruling is a local story about an unusual ballot. Read alongside the California appeals court decision on Friday and Judge Thompson’s nationwide emergency order the same day, it becomes something larger: a coordinated judicial pushback against the federal government’s pre-election intervention in state voting. In each case, the administration sought something extraordinary — to block certification, to set aside 20,000 ballots, to threaten officials with criminal penalties — and in each case a court said no, on grounds that were practical as much as constitutional.

The pattern is worth noting because it cuts against the way these stories are usually told. The administration presents its election litigation as a defence of fairness; its critics describe it as interference. The courts have now, three times in three days, sided with the critics on the question of method, while leaving the underlying claims untouched. That is not a verdict on whether fraud occurred anywhere. It is a verdict on how the government tried to act on its suspicions, and it suggests that future attempts will face the same scepticism unless they arrive earlier, with evidence rather than assertion, and with a remedy a court can actually order.

5. Tuesday will be decided by voters, not by the courts — for now

The practical effect of the ruling is that Alaska votes on Tuesday under the rules it has used all along. The ranked-choice count will proceed, the ballots already cast will be counted as cast, and the share taken by Daniel J. Sullivan will be what it is. If the race is close, the argument over his candidacy will not disappear; it will simply move to a different forum. The criminal investigation continues, the governor has raised the possibility of refusing to certify a Peltola victory, and the department’s appeal is pending in the Ninth Circuit.

None of those threads can change Tuesday’s vote. But they can shape what happens after it, and that is where the real risk lies. A close result in Alaska, followed by a criminal investigation, a governor questioning certification and a federal appeal, would be a recipe for a prolonged dispute over a seat that could decide control of the Senate. The court’s ruling has cleared the path for the election itself. It has not cleared the path for what comes next.

What to Watch Next

1. The appeal: The Justice Department has filed its notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Watch for whether it seeks emergency relief before Tuesday, and how quickly the appeals court responds. Any ruling after the polls close would come too late to change the count, but it could shape the certification fight.
2. The criminal investigation: Grand jury subpoenas have been issued and the FBI is contacting donors to Daniel J. Sullivan’s campaign. Watch for whether any charges are filed, and whether investigators focus on the recruitment alleged in the New York Times report or on the donors who were asked whether they were misled.
3. Governor Dunleavy and certification: The governor ordered a state investigation on 28 October and has suggested he may not certify a Peltola victory. Watch whether he repeats that threat after Tuesday, and whether Alaska’s election officials push back, as they did in federal court.
4. Tuesday’s result and the ranked-choice count: Alaska’s ranked-choice tabulation takes days. Watch Daniel J. Sullivan’s first-round share, and where his voters ranked Senator Sullivan second — the numbers will show whether the senator’s fear of losing votes to his namesake was justified.
5. The wider court fights: The Thompson emergency order and the California case are both on appeal. Watch whether the administration narrows its demands in other states, or whether further rulings extend the pattern set in Alaska, California and Judge Thompson’s courtroom.

Sources

• Associated Press, “Judge Dismisses a Trump-Backed Lawsuit in the Alaska Ballot Case” (via The Washington Sun)
• CNN, “Judge throws out DOJ attempt to delay certification of Alaska Senate race”
• Democracy Docket, “In win for voters, judge throws out DOJ bid to subvert Alaska election”
• CourtListener, docket for United States v. State of Alaska, No. 3:26-cv-00376 (D. Alaska)
• USA Today, “Election live updates: Democrat Haley Stevens endorses Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan”