Even if Petersburg Dan J. Sullivan were running against Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan with the intent to confuse voters — which, to be clear, he says he isn’t — a new lawsuit says it wouldn’t give the Alaska Division of Elections the power to disqualify him.
On Monday, Petersburg Sullivan filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher’s decision last week to remove him from the ballot, arguing she violated the U.S. Constitution, Alaska election law and even Alaska election regulations. Beecher disqualified him last week, arguing that the evidence — like him going by Dan instead of Daniel — “strongly suggested” he was trying to confuse voters.
The lawsuit seeking to put him back on the ballot argues that’s not something Beecher is even allowed to consider — even if there was evidence of a scheme, which there isn’t.
The suit rests on the fact that the qualifications for the U.S. Senate are limited by the U.S. Constitution to age, citizenship and the intent to be a resident of the state you’re elected to represent. The courts have previously rejected term limits as an additional barrier, so the suit argues that Beecher was effectively inventing new law when she was trying to decide whether Petersburg Sullivan was running for the right or wrong reasons.
“The requirement the Division applied simply does not exist. Nothing in Alaska law regulates in any way the private motivations that draw individuals to declare or campaign for office,” the suit argues. “Members of unpopular political parties, for example, frequently run for election, though there is little chance they will succeed.”
The suit notes that the regulations Beecher relied upon, which deal with confusing names on ballots, is more about the design of the ballot and doesn’t give her the power to remove a candidate altogether. It notes that her powers are again limited to the qualifications that are laid out by the U.S. Constitution and, according to caselaw, can’t be changed.
The appropriate solution, it argues, would be to use middle initials or an incumbent and non-incumbent label.
It goes onto say that even if the intent by Petersburg Sullivan was to try to trick voters, nothing in state or federal law would give her the power to disqualify a person for that.
“The Division flatly lacks authority to speculate about a candidate’s motivations and utilize such speculation to exceed the scope of its lawful review of a candidate’s qualifications, the filing wrote. “But even if the Division were correct in its presumption, a plan or desire to divert voters away from one candidate — or even to promote a different candidate — does not eliminate Mr. Sullivan’s right to be considered himself.”
No court date has yet been filed for Petersburg Sullivan’s appeal, but the Division of Elections says it needs to finalize the ballot by Sunday to maintain the schedule for this year’s elections.
Why it matters
The case is particularly important because control of the U.S. Senate could very well run through Alaska.
Sen. Sullivan — a diehard Trump supporter — is seen as one of the most vulnerable incumbent Republicans and even a few percentage points could be enough in what’s expected to be a competitive race against enduringly popular Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. Several polls already show he’s lagging.
That’s why Sen. Sullivan and the Republican machine are so freaked out about Petersburg Sullivan and have been so quick to throw together a narrative insisting that he must be part of a larger conspiracy by Peltola and her allies to confuse voters. No evidence of that has materialized, but it hasn’t stopped the Division of Elections from cobbling together a case that relies heavily on conditional words like “seems” and “appears.”
Traditionally the courts have opted for a more lenient, let-the-voters-decide approach to election controversies. It has previously rejected attempts to disqualify candidates.
That includes an effort to block Rep. David Eastman, a member of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia, from running because his membership violated a Red Scare-era law against anti-government people serving in government. As well as another attempt to disqualify an imprisoned felon from running for the U.S. House in Alaska, with the Division of Elections arguing then that it had no reason to question his intent to move to Alaska because he could, say, get pardoned.
If that sort of leniency has been allowed in the past, the suit argues, then it should be similarly applied here. It also goes onto argue that any apparent confusion over names is properly addressed not just by ballot design by campaigns. A pro-Sen. Sullivan campaign recently launched, frequently referring to him as Dan S. Sullivan.
“As the Alaska Supreme Court has previously acknowledged,” the filing argues. “Alaska voters are savvy.”
The filing
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.
