Alaska senator alleges cheating over namesake on Senate ballot

Alaska’s Republican senator Dan S. Sullivan accused his Democratic opponent of election cheating after voting on Tuesday in a Senate race that also includes a candidate with a similar name.

The accusation follows reporting that Democratic operatives sought to recruit candidates who could split his support. But that reporting does not establish election fraud or show that the namesake changed the result.

Speaking to reporters in Anchorage, Sullivan called it “the biggest election cheating scandal in the history of the state of Alaska” and urged residents to vote. He said he planned to accept the result once every legal vote was counted and certified.

The New York Times reported that aides to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola and national Democratic operatives worked on an effort to recruit candidates. Its reporter, Kellen Browning, told CNN that former Peltola campaign manager Elisa Rios said an operative had told aides he had contacted the other Sullivan, who was open to running if it helped Peltola. Browning said he corroborated much of Rios’s broader account with messages, documents and interviews.

Rios told the newspaper that Peltola was aware of the effort but not directly involved. She later requested a retraction of her statements; she had been dismissed by the campaign in August. Peltola said she did not know whether her campaign had recruited the namesake and, if it had, she had not been aware of it. Her campaign denied involvement with either Sullivan campaign, while the national Democratic Senate campaign committee denied involvement with Dan J. Sullivan.

The other candidate, a retired teacher listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr, has previously said nobody persuaded him to run. The ballot identifies the senator as Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican and the incumbent; his namesake is listed without a party affiliation.

In August’s primary, the namesake received 2.5% of the vote, the senator 41.4% and Peltola 49.5%. Even adding all the namesake’s votes to the senator’s would not have closed Peltola’s lead. November’s election is a different contest, and the primary figures do not show whether voters confused the candidates.

Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, a ballot for an eliminated candidate can transfer to the voter’s next remaining preference. That means a first-choice vote for the namesake would not necessarily be lost to the senator.

The Justice Department has sent letters to people it considers targets of a criminal investigation into the race, including Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, the Associated Press reported. Such a letter does not necessarily mean a charge will follow.

Separately, a federal judge dismissed the department’s bid to delay certification