Todd Blanche defends DOJ lawsuit over Alaska Senate election
“Oh, stop it. You are not being a real person. Come on, man,” U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday, when pressed about whether a Department of Justice lawsuit regarding Alaska’s Senate race was laying groundwork to challenge upcoming midterm results.
The Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit demanding that Alaska block certification of its Senate election results if the Republican incumbent loses, citing potential voter confusion over two candidates sharing similar names. President Donald Trump told reporters in Florida on Friday that he ordered the legal action, stating, “I’m the one that said do it.”
Two Sullivans on the November Ballot in Alaska
The ballot features incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan alongside Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a candidate from Petersburg running with no party label. Republicans have accused the second Sullivan of running as a spoiler to siphon votes from the incumbent in a tight race against Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman. The other Sullivan has denied any intention to confuse voters, maintaining that his decision to run was entirely his own.
The Justice Department lawsuit, signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and filed late Thursday, invokes the National Voter Registration Act to request that vote certification be halted until the federal government investigates voter intent.
Sharp Clashes Over Pre-Election Legal Intervention
During Sunday television appearances, Blanche defended the unprecedented federal intervention while pushing back sharply against interviewers drawing parallels to the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. On CNN’s State of the Union, Blanche rejected suggestions that the administration was positioning itself to overturn unfavorable outcomes, calling the line of questioning “crazy.” The Guardian reported that Blanche also clashed with Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation after she summarized the litigation, telling the host her description of the facts was misleading and a lie to viewers.
Legal scholars have strongly questioned the viability of the federal lawsuit. Derek Mueller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in a blogpost cited by The Guardian that the legal claim is “so absurdly thin, there’s essentially no likelihood of success.” David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, called the suit an unprecedented intervention that raises serious concerns about political interference only 11 days before polls close. Richard H. Pildes, a New York University law professor focusing on elections, told The New York Times that it stands as one of the weakest election lawsuits he has ever seen and should carry no realistic chance of success in the courts.
Alaska Uses Ballot Labels and Ranked-Choice Voting
State officials have already implemented measures to distinguish the two candidates on the ballot. Senator Dan Sullivan appears as “Dan S. Sullivan,” clearly marked as a registered Republican and the incumbent, while Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. carries no party label. Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system also allows voters to rank both candidates. In the August primary, the incumbent senator secured more than 68,000 votes, compared to 4,107 votes for the other candidate.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s other Republican senator, criticized the federal action on social media, stating that the state had already adequately distinguished the candidates and that the department should not have filed the lawsuit.
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. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.https://t.co/88tGvV0P8O