Mary Peltola Campaign Files Lawsuit Over Rejected Alaska Ballots
As the count for Alaska’s high-stakes Senate race continues, the campaign for Democratic candidate Mary Peltola has taken legal action against the state’s Division of Elections. Filed this past Friday, the lawsuit seeks to compel the state to release information regarding rejected absentee ballots. With Peltola leading the incumbent, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, by a margin of 600 votes as of Thursday morning, the status of these ballots could prove to be the deciding factor in the election.
Lawyers for the campaign, represented by the Elias Law Group, argue that this lack of transparency prevents them from ensuring that every lawful vote is accounted for before the rapidly approaching certification deadlines.
The Pressure on Alaska’s Election Process
The race featured an independent candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan, a detail that became a flashpoint for controversy. President Donald Trump has urged Alaska to award votes to incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan that were cast for a longshot candidate with a similar name. In the lead-up to the election, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit attempting to block certification if the margin of victory was smaller than the vote share captured by the independent candidate, an effort that was ultimately dismissed by a federal court.
Despite these claims, data from the New York Times suggests that voters were largely able to distinguish between the two candidates on the ballot. The current legal dispute centers on the state’s adherence to its own open records laws. The Peltola campaign contends that Alaska law is designed to be transparent, specifically citing provisions that allow candidate-appointed observers to attend absentee ballot review board meetings.
Plaintiff cannot ensure that its voters’ lawful votes were properly counted without knowing whose absentee ballots were rejected or questioned, and why. With the counting of absentee ballots and review by the questioned ballot board currently in progress, and certification deadlines rapidly approaching, each hour and each day that Defendants deny Plaintiff the requested records to which it is entitled costs Plaintiff the opportunity to help ensure that qualified voters have their ballots counted.
The Stakes for the Senate Majority
Following the GOP’s overwhelming defeat in the midterm elections, the Republican Party is fighting to maintain control of the Senate, with Alaska and Mississippi serving as the battlegrounds.
The state of Alaska has not yet provided a formal response to the lawsuit or the campaign’s initial records request. As the questioned ballot board continues its work, the window to address potential discrepancies is closing. The legal filing highlights that for the campaign, the issue is not merely about the final tally, but about the fundamental right of qualified voters to participate in the democratic process without their ballots being sidelined by unexplained administrative rejections.
With the margin between the candidates remaining so narrow, the question of which rejected ballots might be corrected remains the central issue. Until the state complies with the request for records, the campaign, and the public, remain in the dark regarding the scale of the rejections and the justifications behind them.
