Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
Two Dan Sullivans are on the ballot in the Alaska Senate race. DOJ is suing to block certification if Senator Sullivan loses. At the Election Law blog, Richard Pildes says that DOJ will lose in court but is trying to influence two other institutions:The first is the certification process within Alaska, where the Lt. Governor plays the role a Secretary of State does in most other states and is the critical overseer of the election process. And the Lt. Governor, Nancy Dahlstrom, is the very person who initiated the investigation seeking to disqualify Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, based on speculations about his motives for running. She ran for the U.S. House in 2024 as a Trump endorsed candidate.
For the certificate of election that is transmitted to the US Senate, the two signatories in Alaska are the Governor and Lt. Gov. In addition the key actors in the certification process are the State Review Board and the Director of the Divisions of Elections, both of which sit within the Lt. Governor’s office, as I understand the Alaska structure.
Thus, even if DOJ loses in the federal courts, as it will, the litigation will give ammunition to anyone in the certification process, particularly the Lt. Gov., who might seek to delay or deny certification to the Democrat, Mary Peltola, if she wins, based on the claim that voters who voted for Daniel J. Sullivan (and perhaps ranked no other candidate) meant to vote for in the incumbent Republican Senator, Daniel S. Sullivan.
The other institution the current litigation might have in mind is the US Senate, where a challenge could conceivably be brought if the Democrat, Mary Peltola, is certified by Alaska but the margin of victory and voting patterns somehow open the door to claims that voter confusion affected the outcome.
