Judge fast-tracks Peltola campaign's bid to dismiss DOJ's Alaska Senate suit

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason agreed Monday to fast-track requests by Mary Peltola's campaign and a coalition of voter groups to join the Justice Department's lawsuit over Alaska's U.S. Senate race and have it dismissed.

Under her order, the department must respond to the requests to join by 5 pm Tuesday, and Gleason intends to rule by 5 pm Wednesday. If she lets the groups in, the department must be prepared to respond to their motions to dismiss by 5 pm Thursday, five days before Election Day. The state and the other defendants have not yet appeared in the case but can also respond Tuesday.

The department sued Oct. 22, asking the court to bar certification if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses but would have won had every vote for the other Sullivan on the ballot, Daniel J. Sullivan, gone to him, pending an investigation into whether those votes were meant for the senator. It argues that the second Sullivan's presence on the ballot "threatens to mislead" the senator's supporters.

Gleason wrote that the department sued after Alaskans had begun voting and "nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court directed the Division of Elections to include Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot." The court is "unaware of any legal challenge" to how the two men were listed on the primary ballot, she wrote, and the general election ballot lists them the same way.

"This case never should have been filed," begins the proposed motion to dismiss that Alaskans for Mary, Peltola's campaign committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee filed Sunday. It argues that the National Voter Registration Act, the law behind the department's only claim, regulates only voter registration, and that the investigation the department wants would be impossible and would violate the secret ballot.

The campaign also asked for the case to be dismissed this week. The League of Women Voters of Alaska, Common Cause and two Fairbanks voters, who are also seeking to join, backed that Monday, saying the public interest favors "swift dismissal of the action with prejudice," which would keep the department from refiling.

A sworn statement from campaign lawyer David R. Fox says that if results suggest a narrow Peltola win while the suit is pending, the campaign and the committee are "seriously concerned" that Attorney General Todd Blanche and President Donald Trump will use it "to falsely suggest that there is doubt about the lawfulness of Alaska's election results."

The statement says Blanche argued on national television Sunday morning that the department sued because "if the law is broken, then any State should not certify." A day earlier, Blanche had written on X that the department "does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska's election."