After today’s oral arguments in front of the Alaska Supreme Court, it’s all but certain that Alaska’s primary election ballot will have two Sullivans.
What’s not certain is whether there will be two Dan Sullivans.
The Alaska Supreme Court appears inclined to uphold Friday’s Superior Court ruling that ordered the Alaska Division of Elections to reinstate a Petersburg man named Dan J. Sullivan to the race against Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. The ruling found the state lacked the authority to question the motives of a candidate who’s been accused of trying to confuse voters — and little has changed in the intervening weekend.
“Where’s the statutory authority to divine the intent of a candidate?” asked Justice Aimee Oravec, echoing questions of several justices during the roughly hourlong arguments. “There’s no statute that guides the division as to what they should be considering.”
Justice Jennifer Henderson called the state’s apparent standards for determining whether a candidate is acting in good or bad faith “amorphous.”
“It seems frankly like a broad amorphous concept of what a candidate’s intent needs to be,” she said. “It seems like it’s very appropriate for us to worry about what is encompassed by that.”
Citing legal precedent that has favored a more hands-off, let-the-voters-decide approach to election issues, several justices said they were concerned the state didn’t opt for a less severe approach to the apparent voter confusion.
The Lower 48 attorney representing the state, Chris Murray, agreed that the state has alternatives to differentiating two people with the same name on the ballot, but that the Division of Elections is under no obligation to do so if it believes the candidate is running with the intent to confuse voters.
Justices seemed unconvinced, noting that there was still no clear legal authority for them to determine a candidate’s intentions and no legal authority to remove them.
However, justices seemed less inclined to order the Division of Elections to list Petersburg Dan Sullivan on the ballot. While the justices seemed convinced that the state lacks the legal authority to remove him, some noted that the issue over exactly how Petersburg Sullivan should appear on the ballot had not yet been raised and, therefore, was something they couldn’t necessarily get involved in at this point.
“The problem is the Division hasn’t acted,” Justice Oravec said. “The division has all the authority to make the initial determination. … Maybe it’s Daniel J. Sullivan Jr, maybe it’s Daniel James Sullivan Jr. non-incumbent, but we don’t know what the division would do if they were required to include him on the ballot.”
That uncertainty seems to be the last hope that the state is holding onto in its effort to minimize whatever perceived harm that Petersburg Sullivan will have on Sen. Sullivan’s re-election bid. Murray argued the state should at least be given the first opportunity to design the ballot without court oversight, then Petersburg Sullivan or another group could appeal that decision in another round of court proceedings.
The justices seemed inclined to follow that process.
It’s unclear where the state might land on that question once the Supreme Court’s ruling is issued, but the state has presented several options that would have Petersburg Sullivan running as something other than Dan J. Sullivan, which is what he has requested to run as.
In prior correspondence, the state had suggested listing him under his full name, Daniel James Sullivan, Jr., with his party — Alaska Republican Party — and a non-incumbent label.
At last week’s oral arguments, Murray argued that a middle initial wasn’t good enough — even though he seemed to indicate it would be good enough if the candidate were deemed to be running with the right intent.
That has since shifted, and in the latest court filing, the state suggested it may even go so far as to change or hide his party affiliation on the ballot. In one filing, the state suggests it would label Petersburg Sullivan as a nonpartisan candidate — which the justices noted wouldn’t accurately reflect his affiliation — but Murray said they may just remove his political party affiliation altogether.
Jeffrey Robinson, the Alaska-based attorney representing Petersburg Sullivan, argued that the Alaska Supreme Court should provide clear guidance to the Division of Elections to ensure it’s at least fair. He said what he’s worried about is the state continuing to pull the strings to give Sen. Sullivan an unfair advantage on the ballot, as it has already been doing with trying to block Petersburg Sullivan from the ballot.
“We trust that they will exercise good faith in doing so in a manner that doesn’t elevate a particular candidate or prejudice a particular candidate,” he said when asked if both men would have to be listed as Dan or whether one could be listed as Daniel.
But he added that the whole thing stems from what he believes is an illegal and unconstitutional effort by elections officials to set an additional “good-faith” standard for candidate races. The whole process questioning Petersburg Sullivan was wrong from the get-go, so he argued that it shouldn’t continue to guide the Division of Elections’ handling of his candidacy.
“That goes down to the basic fact that what the division has done here is added a substantive fourth qualification to the qualifications clause that just doesn’t exist, is impermissible under the US Constitution,” he said, “and there’s no statutory or regulatory support for it. Period.”
However, it’s unclear how this latest potential round of uncertainty works with the state’s claimed Tuesday deadline to start printing ballots, though playing out the clock may very well be the goal.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
