October Surprise in Alaska Senate Race, Thanks to Early Voting, Promises To Beget Post-Election Chaos

Alaska’s Senate race is being shaken by allegations that Democrats are behind a long-shot candidate with the same name as the incumbent Republican, Senator Dan S. Sullivan. Since almost 10 percent of Alaskans have already cast their ballots, expect early voting to loom large in a brewing legal fight that could leave control of the Senate in limbo for weeks.On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the campaign of Alaska’s Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sought to “stack” the state’s ballot. The alleged scheme was to recruit a spoiler with the same name as Mr. Sullivan, something Ms. Pelota has long denied.Alaska’s other Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, posted Wednesday on X that the Times report had unearthed “a pattern of lies and coverups that belongs nowhere in our elections.” As this columnist wrote for The New York Sun in August, the run by so-called “Decoy Dan,” Dan J. Sullivan, also cast fresh doubt on Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.Dan J. Sullivan would have lost in a traditional GOP primary. But 4,098 votes were enough to make the four-person general election ballot against Mr. Sullivan’s 68,684 votes. If no candidate earns a majority on Tuesday, last-place choices are eliminated and second-place choices counted until someone does.Representative Mary Peltola before a debate October 26, 2022, at Anchorage. AP/Mark ThiessenMs. Peltola “LIED,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted Wednesday on X, “about her campaign’s involvement in the Democrat scheme to cheat on Alaska’s ballot. Mary is a liar and Decoy Dan is a fraud. Alaskans won’t let them cheat their way into a Senate seat.”Yet those who have already voted can’t factor the new information into their choices. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Alaska Division of Elections reported that more than 58,000, or about 10 percent of eligible voters, have already submitted ballots. That eclipses the number before 2022’s midterms and is on track to equal 2024’s turnout.The issue of causing harm to early voters surfaced in Virginia’s fight to“legitimize,” as the Sun wrote in an editorial in April, a partisan gerrymander of the state’s congressional map” to eliminate GOP seats after voting began. A lawyer for Virginia’s Democratic lawmakers, Matthew Seligman, “conceded some … early voters ‘might be upset or regret their vote.’”However, Mr. Seligman judged that “‘a problem that someone accepts for voting early.’ In other words,” the Sun interpreted, “Flake off.” This although Democrats push to get citizens to bank ballots early, an effort that the GOP has struggled to match. While Alaska’s general election ballot denotes Dan S. Sullivan as the “incumbent,” critics say that’s insufficient.Congresswoman Mary Peltola, now running for the Senate, on November 8, 2022 at Anchorage, Alaska. Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe record number of early voters helps ensure that this October Surprise will linger in what’s already a disputed election. Speaking to South Carolinians on Sunday, President Trump called the allegations against Ms. Peltola “voter fraud at the highest level” and said that both she and Dan J. Sullivan “should be removed from the ballot” and “prosecuted.”A reporter in South Carolina raised the possibility of Republicans refusing to seat a victorious Ms. Peltola. “You’re going to have to see what happens.” Article I of the Constitution empowers the House and Senate to be “judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of” members. A majority vote would keep Alaska’s seat vacant.Mr. Trump called the alleged effort a “criminal act,” and NBC News reported that the Department of Justice has issued “at least three dozen new subpoenas and document preservation requests.” Governor Michael Dunleavy, a Republican, has tasked the state’s Department of Public Safety with determining “whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted.”The FBI states that “election crimes fall within federal jurisdiction” when “the election ballot includes at least one candidate for federal office,” as in a senator. “Intentionally deceiving qualified voters to prevent them from voting is voter suppression.” Whether the “Decoy Dan” candidacy violates that or other statutes is sure to be litigated.Whoever Alaska sends to the Senate will have a cloud over his or her election, thanks both to early voting and the ranked-choice system, with the potential to determine control of the upper chamber. It’s enough to make citizens pine for the days when October Surprises, dirty though they might be, evaporated after once the votes were cast.

October Surprise in Alaska Senate Race, Thanks to Early Voting, Promises To Beget Post-Election Chaos

October Surprise in Alaska Senate Race, Thanks to Early Voting, Promises To Beget Post-Election Chaos

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