Policy Summary: On October 22, 2026 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit in the United States Federal District Court for the District of Alaska for injunctive and declaratory relief pending the results of the upcoming 2026 election for Senator in the State of Alaska. The lawsuit seeks to prevent certification of the election if the incumbent Republican Senator loses the election.
The 2026 election for Senator from Alaska is essentially a three – way race. Mary Peltola is the Democratic nominee. The Republican nominee is Daniel S. Sullivan, the current junior senator from Alaska, who has held this position since 2015. The third nominee is Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher. Daniel J. Sullivan is listed on the ballot as also being a member of the Republican Party. To differentiate between the two “Sullivans” the Alaska ballot has put “Incumbent” next to the current Senator’s name.
Daniel J. Sullivan entered the race because he was unhappy with the incumbent senator’s work representing Alaska in Congress. After he entered the race, Alaska election officials went ahead and removed him from the ballot, citing confusion between the two candidates with almost identical names. However, a lawsuit was brought to challenge the removal of the retired school teacher from the ballot. After winding its way through the courts the case ended up before the Alaska Supreme Court which then ruled for the retired school teacher and returned him to the ballot. After these legal maneuvers through the Alaskan state courts, the DOJ filed their lawsuit in federal court, citing potential voter confusion.
Policy Analysis: The decision by the Trump Administration and the Department of Justice has been condemned. It has been called an attempt at election meddling and a lawsuit with no basis in fact or federal law.
The rationale for the lawsuit is because Trump and the DOJ believe that any votes cast for the retired school teacher named Sullivan would be the result of confusion since the incumbent senator is also named Daniel Sullivan. The other Senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, has pushed back on this rationale. She stated “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot.” She went further by adding “The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.” What Senator Murkowski was referring to was that the issue of voter confusion had already been litigated by the Alaska trial courts. The issue was presented and litigated all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court which determined there would be no confusion and went ahead and restored teacher Sullivan back on the ballot. For the DOJ to file this current lawsuit would just be re – hashing old arguments and counter – arguments that have already been settled.
Furthermore, the practical matters of tallying ballots presents significant difficulties in determining which ballots may have been the result of “voter confusion.” The practice in the United States is for every voter to have the right to a “secret ballot.” What this means is that the government provides every voter with a ballot along with the right to make their choices privately and free from coercion, intimidation or harassment. That had not always been the case in the United States during the early days of the Republic. Voters during the early days sometimes provided their own scraps of paper with their choices, sometimes simply raised their hands in open meetings or submitted a ballot that was provided by their political party. Nearly all state constitutions now provide the right to a secret ballot that does not link the ballot to the voter once it has been cast. The problem with this lawsuit is in how to determine if a voter in Alaska was misled or confused about which “Sullivan” they wanted to select since ballots cannot be linked to a specific individual once used. There is no way, as the complaint is filed, to determine if there was any actual confusion when the voter made their selection. All the lawsuit says is that if the preferred incumbent Senator named Daniel Sullivan loses the election, then certification by Alaskan election officials cannot proceed because there will most likely be supporters of one Sullivan inadvertently voting for the other Sullivan. But this argument is extremely weak because it presupposes that a voter will make a mistake in making their choice when in fact there are hundreds of thousands of voters who have not even voted yet. (The 2026 American mid – term election is more than a week away.) Because the race is deemed to be a close one, with a difference of 2.5% estimated by some polls between Democratic Mary Peltola and incumbent Senator Daniel Sullivan, the lawsuit is already predicting that a loss by the Republican Senator can only have been the result of confusion.
The lawsuit goes further and also implies that a victory by the Republican incumbent can be the only accepted result. On its face, this lawsuit is pre – mature because voting is not yet complete and we do not know at this time in late October how Alaskan voters will vote. Additionally, it will be difficult to determine which ballots may have been the result of confusion due to the concept of “secret ballots” and the inability to link ballots to individual voters. At its core, this lawsuit is simply another attempt by this Administration and his cronies to latch on to any detail and conspiracy theory to throw doubt on the integrity and conduct of U.S. elections.
This lawsuit should be immediately dismissed for the weak legal arguments it puts forth eleven days before the American mid – terms. LEARN MORE, LEARN MORE
Take Action
- United States v. Alaska – complaint filed that initiated the lawsuit in Alaska.
- Campaign Legal Center – history and explanation of the secret ballot concept.
- Election Law Blog – analysis of the language and legal arguments to support lawsuit.