A federal judge rejected the administration’s lawsuit over the appearance of a spoiler candidate on Alaska’s Senate ballot, ruling Sunday that the Trump team’s requests to segregate and investigate ballots were impossible.
Judge Sharon Gleason, an Obama appointee to the court in Alaska, said the Justice Department never offered a “workable plan” for how to separate out the ballots, particularly given that some residents had already cast their votes by the time the lawsuit got going.
To try to pierce that would mean violating ballot secrecy, the judge ruled.
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“But requiring the segregation of ballots cast by voters for Daniel J. Sullivan so that these voters can be further investigated by law enforcement is not a remedy that this court can or should order as it clearly violates Alaskans’ right to a secret ballot,” she wrote.
The Justice Department quickly filed a notice of appeal.
Republicans fear that Daniel Sullivan will sap votes from Sen. Dan. S. Sullivan, the incumbent Republican who is seeking re-election.
Daniel Sullivan’s campaign has many earmarks of a campaign trick, but state officials allowed him to be on the ballot. He was one of the top four vote-getters in the August primary, sending him to the runoff with Gerald Heikes and Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is Dan Sullivan’s chief competitor.
Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, voters seed their choices. If no candidate crosses the 50% mark on the first check, the lowest vote-getter is booted and officials look to their second choices they marked on their ballots.
The New York Times reported last week that Daniel Sullivan, the potential spoiler, was recruited into the race with the knowledge of Ms. Peltola’s team. Ms. Peltola has personally denied knowledge.
Democrats cheered Sunday’s ruling.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called it “a victory for democracy.
“No one, no matter how powerful, can toss out free and fair elections just because they don’t like the result,” said DSCC Executive Director Devan Barber.
Democrats on Sunday talk shows also shrugged off criticism that the party was using dirty election tricks in Alaska.
Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a democratic socialist who is part of Senate Democratic leadership, called the spoiler scheme “pretty dumb … but it’s not illegal.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said it “happens all over the place” and “that’s the law across America.”
Mr. Raskin said he believes Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s claim that she had nothing to do with the scheme.
“She is a public official filled with integrity and purpose,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Part of Republicans’ trouble in the Alaska case was the lateness of the lawsuit. Ballots had already been cast and by the time the case got moving.
That same issue plagued DOJ’s attempt to segregate 20,000 ballots in California that the Justice Department says were mailed to potential noncitizens.
There, too, DOJ had asked judges to order those ballots segregated, but judges said votes had already been cast and it was impossible to segregate them.
• Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report.
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