Trump Justice Department loses bid to block Alaska Senate vote count

Federal judge dismisses Trump Justice Department bid to block Alaska Senate count

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking to halt certification of Alaska's Senate race on Sunday, ruling that the relief requested was "infeasible" because ballots already submitted had been commingled to a degree that made individual voter identification impossible without violating voter secrecy.

The suit, filed under two weeks before election day while early voting was already underway, argued that the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ranked-choice ballot could cause voter confusion sufficient to affect the result. Judge Gleason found that the government offered no workable mechanism for segregating ballots cast for retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan from those intended for Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan.

Republican incumbent Sullivan, speaking on CNN's State of the Union two days before the election, said he would accept the results regardless of outcome, while maintaining that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola had been "lying to the Alaskan people" about her campaign's role in recruiting the second Sullivan onto the ballot. Peltola has denied any knowledge of the scheme.