Federal Judge Dismisses Justice Department Bid to Freeze Alaska Senate Results

A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration's effort to halt the certification of results in Alaska's U.S. Senate race on Sunday.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason issued the ruling, determining that the federal government did not have the legal standing to file the lawsuit. The case relied on the preamble of the National Voter Registration Act to seek an order preventing state officials from certifying the election outcome.

The administration requested the pause to allow time for an investigation into potential voter confusion. This confusion stemmed from the presence of two candidates with similar names on Alaska's ranked-choice ballot: incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and independent candidate Daniel Sullivan Jr.

Judge Gleason, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, concluded that a court order freezing the certification process would likely infringe upon Alaskan voters' right to a secret ballot. She noted that the United States failed to explain how the requested relief would address the alleged injury while preserving ballot secrecy.

The absence of any explanation from the United States as to how its requested relief could redress its alleged injury while simultaneously maintaining the secrecy of the ballot is telling, Gleason wrote in the decision.

The Department of Justice intends to appeal the ruling. Kiersten Pels, a department spokesperson, stated that Alaskan voters deserve a fair election rather than being misled in an attempt to rig outcomes. Voting rights groups that assisted in defending Alaska against the lawsuit welcomed the decision.

Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, described the Justice Department's attempt to invalidate the results before any ballots were counted as lawless. She characterized the legal move as a reckless waste of taxpayer money aimed at silencing hundreds of thousands of Alaska voters.

President Trump stated that he ordered the lawsuit due to the similar names of the two Sullivan candidates. Alaska's Republican Party had previously supported a state court effort to remove Sullivan Jr. from the ballot. The Alaska Supreme Court rejected that effort in June, ruling that the non-incumbent candidate retained the right to run.

Allegations that Democratic operatives supported Sullivan Jr. to disrupt the incumbent's reelection campaign have persisted throughout the contest. A report by The New York Times regarding these efforts, which NPR has not independently confirmed, renewed scrutiny of the race. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered a state investigation and indicated that certification may be delayed depending on the findings.

If we find out there's wrongdoing, and if that means that the certification then is stopped or changed, then that's what happens, Dunleavy told NewsNation in an interview on October 30. At a press conference in Anchorage on the same day, U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman confirmed an ongoing criminal probe by the Justice Department.

Democratic candidate and former Rep. Mary Peltola has denied any involvement in the recruitment of Sullivan Jr. Incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that he would accept the election results regardless of the outcome. Over 86,700 voters in Alaska had cast ballots during the early voting period, according to the state's Division of Elections, with voting continuing through Tuesday.