Judge tosses DOJ’s ‘Decoy Dan’ election lawsuit

THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do)

A federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit over Alaska’s second Dan Sullivan on the Senate ballot. The Justice Department says it will appeal.
The New York Times reported that operatives connected to Democrat Mary Peltola helped recruit the namesake candidate to confuse voters.
Federal investigators have issued dozens of subpoenas, and Sen. Tim Scott says the alleged scheme could bring serious criminal consequences.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time)

Alaska’s increasingly bizarre Senate election has produced another courtroom twist, and with Election Day just one day away, the mystery of the second Dan Sullivan is nowhere near finished.

On Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to delay certification of Alaska’s Senate election if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses and votes for another candidate named Dan Sullivan could have affected the outcome.

The Justice Department promptly announced an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

And while the ruling was a setback for the Trump administration, the separate federal criminal investigation into the alleged election scheme continues.

The controversy began with an unusual coincidence that investigators and Republican officials believe wasn’t a coincidence at all.

Alaska’s Senate ballot includes Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and retired schoolteacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who is running without party affiliation.

Two Dan Sullivans. One Senate race. And allegations that the second one was recruited specifically to confuse voters into supporting the wrong candidate.

The dispute became considerably more serious last week when The New York Times reported that individuals connected to Democratic nominee Mary Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had participated in efforts to recruit a namesake candidate.

The reporting drew on interviews, text messages and other records concerning efforts to recruit Sullivan Jr. and potentially other candidates.

Peltola has denied knowing about the alleged recruitment operation. Her campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have denied involvement in the second Sullivan’s candidacy.

The retired teacher has also denied coordinating with Peltola’s campaign.

The Justice Department, however, is investigating whether the candidacy was part of a deliberate effort to manipulate voter choices.

The department filed its lawsuit October 22, asking the court to delay certification under certain circumstances while investigators examined whether voters had confused the two candidates.

Judge Gleason wasn’t persuaded.

In her 20-page ruling, she concluded that federal attorneys had failed to establish the legal requirements necessary for the court to grant the requested relief.

The central problem was ballot secrecy.

The government wanted to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. were actually intended for the Republican senator.

But the judge said the Justice Department had provided no practical method for making that determination without compromising the secrecy of individual ballots.

“More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,” Gleason wrote.

She also concluded that the requested intervention would intrude on Alaska’s constitutional authority to administer its elections.

That ruling addressed the government’s ability to obtain the court order it wanted. It did not decide whether anyone had improperly recruited the second Sullivan.

The Justice Department made that distinction central to its response.

“The court dismissed the case on procedural grounds but did not dispute the argument of the United States that Daniel J. Sullivan (a/k/a Decoy Dan) entered the race as a frivolous candidate to confuse voters,” DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels said.

“Alaskan voters deserve a fair election, not to be misled in an attempt to rig outcomes.”

The department said it would appeal.

The controversy has already triggered a separate criminal investigation, with federal investigators issuing subpoenas and seeking records connected to the alleged recruitment operation.

Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, appeared on Fox News Saturday and said Republicans had been warning about the second Sullivan for months.

“Absolutely vindicated. We’ve been saying this for months,” Scott declared.

He accused the namesake candidate of copying the incumbent senator’s campaign branding, including its colors, logo and typography.

Scott then went considerably further.

“The truth is that the fake Dan, the ‘Decoy Dan,’ his one objective is to confuse voters. Number two, if there’s a second point, it’s the collusion that occurred to recruit this candidate. That is a criminal offense. It is immoral, frankly, to lie to the public about who you are, but it is actually illegal to collude with others in order to confuse the voters.”

Scott also pointed to the second Sullivan’s federal campaign filings, arguing that they reflected little serious campaign activity.

“On his FEC forms, federal election forms, what does he show? Nothing,” Scott said. “He’s actually done nothing trying to achieve the goal of being the senator. He’s done one thing, which is to put his name on the ballot to confuse the voters.”

And Scott had a warning for anyone questioned by federal investigators.

“I would be shaking in my boots if I was ‘Decoy Dan,’ and frankly, no one wants to go to jail for something they didn’t do,” he said.

“So he’d be very careful as he talks to the federal Department of Justice about what happened and what didn’t happen. Lying to the prosecutors — that’s a felony.”

The investigation has not resulted in publicly announced criminal charges against the candidates or campaign officials.

Meanwhile, Peltola’s campaign responded to Sunday’s dismissal by accusing the administration of interfering in Alaska’s election.

“No sham investigation or baseless lawsuit from a weaponized Department of Justice is going to stop Alaskans from electing Mary on November 3rd so she can lower costs for Alaska’s working families,” the campaign said.

“Alaskans will choose their next U.S. Senator – not Dan Sullivan or his DC allies.”

There is another wrinkle worth examining.

Alaska’s Division of Elections initially disqualified the second Sullivan, finding that his candidacy was not a genuine attempt to seek office.

But a state judge overturned that decision in June, ruling that election officials lacked the authority to exclude him on those grounds. The Alaska Supreme Court subsequently allowed him to remain on the ballot.

And Alaska’s Republican-led state government itself opposed the Justice Department’s latest effort to delay certification, arguing that the requested relief was incompatible with voter secrecy.

The state uses ranked-choice voting, which means voters can rank candidates in order of preference. If nobody receives a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated and votes are transferred according to subsequent preferences.

That makes the precise effect of a namesake candidate more complicated than a simple vote-splitting calculation.

Sullivan Jr. received approximately 2.5% of the vote in the primary, enough to advance to the general election.

Republicans argue that even a relatively small number of confused voters could matter in a competitive Senate race.

Democrats maintain that the administration’s lawsuit is an effort to cast doubt on the election before votes are counted.

President Trump has acknowledged personally directing the Justice Department to pursue the case.

“I’m the one that said, ‘Do it,'” Trump told reporters.

The incumbent Sullivan said Sunday that he would accept the election results, although he declined to endorse efforts to withhold certification if Peltola wins.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has suggested that certification could become an issue depending on the result.

For now, the immediate legal question moves to the appeals court while the criminal investigation proceeds on a separate track.

The ballot still contains two Dan Sullivans.

The Justice Department is still investigating how the second one got there.

And Alaska voters are heading to the polls Tuesday with an election controversy that has already reached federal court, triggered subpoenas and attracted the personal attention of the president.