DOJ Sues to Block Alaska Senate Results: Trump Administration Seeks to Halt Certification if Dan Sullivan Loses

The Trump administration has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska's U.S. Senate election if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, in a case built around the presence of a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot.
The lawsuit, filed as United States v. Alaska, asks a federal court to delay certification of any result "impacted by voter confusion" while the Justice Department investigates whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for the senator. The DOJ argues the second Sullivan — a retired teacher listed without party affiliation though registered as a Republican — could siphon votes from the incumbent, potentially flipping the race to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola under Alaska's ranked-choice voting system.
Legal experts called the DOJ's theory "strange and unusual." The department cites the preamble of the National Voter Registration Act about protecting "the integrity of the electoral process" — language election-law scholars say creates no enforceable duty on states.
Alaska's race could decide control of the Senate. Democrats need to net four seats in November, and Alaska is among the Republican-held states they hope to flip. In the August primary, Peltola took 49.5 percent to Sullivan's 41.4 percent, with the second Sullivan at 2.5 percent. Alaska's Supreme Court earlier allowed Daniel J. Sullivan to stay on the ballot after the state's Division of Elections disqualified him in June over claims his candidacy was designed to mislead voters.
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