Alaska Urges Federal Judge to Dismiss Trump Administration Lawsuit

Alaska State Government Urges Dismissal of Trump-Backed Ballot Lawsuit

Alaska’s Republican-run state government urged a federal judge on Saturday to dismiss a lawsuit filed at President Donald Trump’s direction to halt the certification of a potential Democratic win in the state’s pivotal U.S. Senate race. In a scathing filing from the state attorney general’s office, officials wrote that there is “no reason for this Court to entertain this meritless lawsuit any longer.”

Federal Court Deadlines and Department of Justice Arguments

The development comes as U.S. District Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason set a deadline of Saturday for arguments over whether to dismiss the complaint without holding a hearing. The U.S. Department of Justice brought the lawsuit, demanding that the judge halt certification of a possible win by Democrat Mary Peltola. The challenge questions whether voters experienced confusion due to a second candidate—a retired school teacher in Petersburg named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who shares a name with Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.

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On Friday, the Department of Justice expanded its request, asking the judge to separate all ballots cast for the second Dan Sullivan until authorities can determine whether voters were misled into wasting votes on a spoiler candidate. Alaska’s filing on Saturday dismissed this proposition as “both disturbing and impossible,” adding that executing such a separation would violate voter privacy.

Ballot Design and Legal Standing

President Trump also demanded that Peltola face prosecution following a New York Times report citing internal text messages and posts suggesting the Democrat’s campaign aided in recruiting the second Sullivan onto the ballot. However, the state’s filing pointed out that election officials carefully structured the ballot to minimize voter confusion. The incumbent senator is listed as a Republican, while the second candidate appears simply as “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.”

“State officials carefully designed the ballot to minimize voter confusion. 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,” Alaska officials wrote in the Saturday filing.

The Trump administration grounded its arguments in a preamble to a 1990s voter registration law, asserting it holds the responsibility to maintain the integrity of federal elections and combat fraud. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas and announced a criminal investigation into the matter.

Unusual Alignment Against Federal Intervention

Peltola has denied any involvement in the presence of the second candidate, though Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy announced a state investigation following the New York Times report. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled this summer that the second candidate met all legal requirements to remain on the ballot. This ruling, the state argued on Saturday, is unaffected by the newly surfaced revelations regarding campaign communications.

The push for dismissal has created an unusual alignment between Alaska state officials, Peltola’s campaign, and voting rights organizations.

“Imagine if the federal executive could pluck a few words like ‘election integrity’ from some statutory preamble and, on that basis alone, bend the machinery of state elections to his will, preemptively blocking certification of a U.S. Senate election to protect his preferred candidate from defeat and then subjecting voters to a law-enforcement-led inquest about who they ‘really’ supported,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in its filing urging dismissal. “Imagine that world and ask whether it is what the Framers wanted or precisely what they most feared.”