Ballot stacking is when a little-known candidate runs for office to siphon votes away from a more prominent opponent. This is a tactic widely considered legal, albeit unsavory.
And it’s shaking up Alaskan politics this week.
The U.S. Senate race is a close contest between Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola. But also on the ballot is a retired professor named Dan J. Sullivan, of Petersburg, Alaska, who entered the race in the spring. Republicans say confusion over the Sullivans could cost incumbents votes.
The New York Times discovered that operatives aligned with Ms. Peltola spent months recruiting candidates to siphon votes from her Republican competitors. She and her campaign have denied any involvement with the lesser-known Mr. Sullivan. This candidate also denied any wrongdoing and said he was running because he was unhappy with Senator Sullivan.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking certification of the election if the incumbent senator narrowly lost, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, called for an investigation.
Ballot stacking is not unusual in American politics – ballots up and down, regardless of party. Here are some examples.
Rick and Ricky
Rick Perry is running for Texas governor in 2022, but don’t confuse him with the former Texas governor and U.S. energy secretary of the same name.
Instead, this man, whose full name was Ricky Lynn Perry, was, according to the Texas Tribune, an employee of a defense contractor.
In the end, Mr. Perry convinced just over 61,000 people to vote for him, garnering 3.1 percent of the vote. Greg Abbott, a Republican, received nearly 67 percent of the primary vote with just under 1.3 million votes, before winning the general election.
A Rodriguez who made the difference
In 2020, Frank Artiles, a former Republican state senator in Florida, recruited a friend, Alexis Pedro Rodriguez, to run in the state Senate race against the incumbent Democrat, state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez. The idea was that the two men’s shared last name would confuse voters and divert votes away from José Rodriguez.
It worked: The incumbent president lost by just 32 votes (challenger Mr. Rodriguez received just over 6,000) and Senate Republicans flipped the seat.
Ballot stacking can cross into legally questionable territory if, for example, a candidate is paid to run. Alexis Rodriguez later pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges and agreed to participate in an investigation into Mr. Artiles. In 2024, Mr. Artiles was convicted of campaign finance violations, including giving Mr. Rodriguez thousands of dollars in cash and gifts in exchange for his candidacy, according to the Miami Herald. His lawyers appealed the verdict in 2025, the Miami Herald also reported.
She ran, but not exactly
Jestine Iannotti, a former substitute teacher, ran as an independent candidate for Florida State Senate in 2020. She did not campaign and raised little money, but fliers describing her as a Democrat were sent to voters and featured a photo of a Black woman. “Jestine Iannotti will always be there for us,” the flyers read. Ms. Iannotti is white.
Jason T. Brodeur, a Republican, won the Senate seat with 141,544 votes to Ms. Iannotti’s 5,787.
Ms. Iannotti has been called a so-called ghost candidate, someone who entered a race with the intention not of winning but of influencing the results. She ultimately pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors, including one for accepting a cash contribution, The Orlando Sentinel reported.
Two Jerry Garcias
In 2020, Jerry Garcia ran against Jerry Garcia in a Democratic primary election for Constable in Harris County, Texas. Although neither was related to the late Grateful Dead frontman, a Mr. Garcia was a cousin of the outgoing police officer’s wife.
The other was a veteran law enforcement officer who served as a lieutenant to a police officer at another precinct. This Jerry Garcia had been campaigning for a year when the other Jerry Garcia, who had no law enforcement experience, entered the race on the last possible day.
When she went home for comment, a local television station was unable to reach the last-minute participant. She did, however, spot a sign supporting the incumbent on her lawn.
While Mr. Garcia, the latecomer, won only 9.3 percent of the vote, the primary ended in a runoff, where the other Mr. Garcia, the one from law enforcement, beat the incumbent president by just 219 votes.
That Mr. Garcia won the general election.
A name change foiled
In 1986, Jon D. “Peaches” Johnson, then a Louisiana state representative, ran for state Senate. A challenger changes his name and enters the race: John Peaches Johnson. He ultimately did not qualify to appear on the ballot, the Wall Street Journal previously reported. The first Mr. Johnson won.
JFK and a janitor
In an example of ballot stacking further back, two men named Joseph Russo ran against John F. Kennedy in the 1946 Democratic primary of his first congressional campaign. One, Joseph Russo, was a well-established politician in Boston, the other was a janitor.
“I was pretty well-liked at the time, and they added this other Joseph Russo to complicate the names,” Mr. Russo, the politician, later said in an interview at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. He said he didn’t know who recruited the other Joseph Russo.
Mr. Kennedy won the primary handily.
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