With Alaska’s Senate race still undecided days after Nov. 3, Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign filed a lawsuit Friday against Alaska election officials, demanding immediate access to information about mail-in ballots that were rejected in the extremely close election.
The campaign argues that disclosure is necessary to ensure eligible votes are properly counted and to protect the integrity of the race, which was repeatedly contested in the weeks leading up to Election Day due to the presence of a namesake challenger to the incumbent, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The Justice Department sued Alaska election officials last month, seeking to block certification of the race’s outcome if the incumbent had lost and votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. would have helped him win. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge on November 1, two days before Election Day.
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Because the race is a true toss-up that remains too close to decide, with about 600 votes separating Peltola and Sullivan, the outcome could depend on a few ballots mailed or flown in from remote communities. Alaska will accept ballots from overseas voters until November 18.
In Mississippi, another U.S. Senate race that remains too close to call, Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is also setting the stage for possible later litigation, demanding that provisional ballots be overturned.
“These measures are necessary to ensure that the eligibility of each sworn ballot for counting and final determination can be verified,” she said in a letter sent by her attorneys, Lex Political, to election officials in Mississippi’s 82 counties on Nov. 5.
Meanwhile, in California, the Trump administration dropped a federal lawsuit against the state over about 20,000 mail-in ballots cast by people believed to be non-U.S. citizens. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the withdrawal Friday, describing it as a victory for the state after a series of legal defeats by the federal government.
The Trial of Mary Peltola, Explained
Peltola’s campaign group, Alaskans for Mary, sued the Alaska Division of Elections, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and Elections Director Carol Beecher on Friday over the release of documents identifying rejected absentee ballots in the Nov. 3 election. They also ask why these votes were rejected.
“Plaintiff cannot guarantee that its voters’ legal votes were correctly counted without knowing which absentee ballots were rejected or questioned, and why,” the filing states.
The campaign writes that it had requested the records from each regional office of the Division of Elections on October 27, but had not received a response to its requests.
On November 4, the campaign submitted additional correspondence demanding the requested documents by 4 p.m. on November 5. The request to “immediately” provide the documents was denied “during a conference call and subsequent email correspondence” that same day, the lawsuit says.
Denied access to records leaves Peltola’s campaign unable to verify whether ballots are being counted correctly, the team argued, and whether votes for the Democrat were improperly discarded. And time is running out, they said.
“With absentee ballot counting and review by the Polling Board currently underway, and certification deadlines rapidly approaching, every hour and day that Defendants deny Plaintiff the requested records to which he is entitled costs Plaintiff the opportunity to help ensure that qualified voters have their ballots counted,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit asks the Anchorage court for emergency relief, including a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction requiring the state to provide the records.
Why the Alaska Division of Elections Denied Peltola Access
In a statement released Friday, the State Law Department, which represents the lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections, said it denied Peltola’s campaign access to those documents because they have long been treated confidentially.
“Because the information is preliminary, subject to change, and not yet available to affected voters, the Division does not distribute records separately or allow observers to retain them,” the department said.
“Release of preliminary information in the manner sought by the lawsuit would create additional burdens in processing the ballot and could delay the timely counting of votes. The Division has protected this information for years and will ask the court to protect it as well.”
News week contacted the Alaska Department of Law, Peltola’s and Sullivan’s campaigns for comment via email Saturday morning.
Mary Peltola vs. Dan Sullivan: What We Know So Far
With more than 20 percent of votes still uncounted as of Saturday morning, Peltola, an Alaska native and former congresswoman, held a narrow lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, 48.2 percent to 47.9 percent.
Two other candidates, Republican Gerald Heikes and undeclared “decoy” Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., received 2.3% and 1.7% of the vote, respectively. The latter initially filed as a Republican, but went undeclared after being accused of being a fake candidate recruited by Democrats to siphon votes from the outgoing president.
It may still be several days before we know the outcome of the race.
President Donald Trump said Saturday on Truth Social that the race was “OVER” and that Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan had “WON A LOT,” pointing to the 3,600 first-choice votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and 4,846 for Republican Gerald Heikes. Trump argued that those votes should actually be added to the incumbent president’s total and questioned why his victory had not been announced.
But Alaska’s ranked-choice voting rules don’t simply call for adding all of those votes to Dan Sullivan’s total. If no candidate receives a majority, the lowest performing candidates are eliminated and their ballots are transferred based on each voter’s subsequent ranking.
Assuming neither Sullivan nor Peltola wins an outright majority, “which seems to be the most likely outcome,” the ranking of choices will take place 15 days after the election, said Russell Luke, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. News week.
“This is expected, and it is simply a result of the voting system and the expansive nature of the state. It would be unfortunate if the rest of the country had to wait until Alaska knows the fate of the Senate, but it is a very likely outcome given the available evidence.”
Cindy Hyde-Smith vs. Scott Colom: What We Know So Far
As of Saturday morning, Republican Hyde-Smith was behind Democrat Scott Colom by nearly 2,000 votes. With 97 percent of the votes counted, the Republican incumbent received 48.8 percent of the vote, while Colom led with 49.1 percent. Candidate Ty Pinkins, who ran as an independent, received 2.1 percent of the vote.
If Colom wins, he would become another victorious candidate to make history in these midterm elections. If elected, the local prosecutor would be Mississippi’s first black senator since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Hyde-Smith, on the other hand, would become another example of Donald Trump’s choice failing to be recognized by voters as the best candidate for the job.
Hyde-Smith was first appointed to fill a vacancy, then won a 2018 special election.
The outcome of this race is expected before the outcome of the Alaska Senate race. Mississippi is not holding a runoff election for the U.S. Senate, even though neither Hyde-Smith nor Colom reaches 50 percent of the vote.
Several thousand provisional ballots are still expected to be counted during the race. Mississippi has until November 10 to resolve these ballots. And that’s where Hyde-Smith’s request, filed Thursday by her lawyers, comes into play.
The letter requires county election officials to separate all affidavit ballots from other votes cast in Tuesday’s election, store them securely throughout the counting and certification process, and maintain detailed records of the status of each ballot, including whether it was accepted, rejected or remains unresolved.
It also requires officials to maintain all supporting documents, including ballot envelopes, voter records, and chain of custody records, to ensure that ballots and associated evidence remain available for any potential legal proceedings.
“Because these ballots and records constitute potential evidence in any box examination under § 23-15-911, election campaign, or proceeding before the United States Senate, Candidate Hyde-Smith is entitled to their preservation in an unaltered and identifiable state,” the letter states.
News week contacted the Hyde-Smith and Colom campaigns for comment via email Saturday morning.
Contact Newsweek’s editor-in-chief for this story: Edward Pearcey.
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