The State of Alaska is urging a federal judge to “immediately” dismiss a Trump administration lawsuit that could block certification of the U.S. Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan narrowly loses.
“Delaying certification of Alaska’s election results—but only if a particular candidate does not win—would interfere with state election administration and threaten election integrity,” the Alaska Department of Law, representing the Division of Elections and director Carol Beecher, wrote in response to the lawsuit.
The state said the lawsuit “has no legal basis” and would sow distrust in the vote.
The Department of Justice claims if Sullivan loses, it could be because voters were confused by another candidate on the ballot with a nearly identical name. The state, though, said it has minimized the possibility of confusion by listing the two Sullivans differently on the ballot and identifying the senator as the Republican incumbent.
The state’s arguments are far from unique. Democrat Mary Peltola, who is vying for Sullivan’s Senate seat, and nonprofit watchdog groups are asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit on similar grounds. But the state’s vigorous defense against the lawsuit wasn’t a given. This summer, heeding Republican requests, the state tried to boot challenger Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg from the ballot, claiming his aim was to confuse voters. The Alaska Supreme Court said the state couldn’t violate the retired teacher’s right to run for office.
The state says the ballot now clearly distinguishes Sen. Sullivan from challenger Sullivan, who is listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. with no party affiliation.
“If any voter remains confused, Alaska law allows voters to receive assistance from others,” the state response says. “And if the voter is still uncertain, he can rank both Sullivans as his first and second choices under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system so that his vote will count for either Sullivan over any other candidate.”
Election law experts, like University of Kentucky Law Professor Joshua Douglas, have called the basis of the lawsuit unusually thin.
“This case is a press release disguised as a lawsuit,” Douglas said.
The only law it cites is the National Voter Registration Act, but that law, as the state points out, is limited to matters of registration, not ballot counting or state certification.
President Donald Trump, who held a rally in Alaska this month to support Sen. Sullivan’s reelection, said he personally ordered the lawsuit. It seeks to block or delay certification of the election if Sen. Sullivan loses to Peltola but would’ve won if every ballot cast for the other Sullivan were counted in the senator’s favor. If that happens, the lawsuit calls for an investigation to determine if voters were confused.
The state says there’s no way to investigate voter intent without violating the voter’s right to a secret ballot.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason granted an expedited briefing schedule and took pointed note of the federal government’s timing.
“After Alaskans had already begun casting their ballots for the November 2026 election—and nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court directed the Division of Elections to include Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot for the upcoming United States Senate election—the United States initiated this action on October 22, 2026,” she wrote.
She could rule on the motions to dismiss the case as early as Friday night.
This story was originally published by Alaska Public Media.
