A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department that sought to pre-emptively challenge the outcome of a U.S. Senate race featuring two candidates with identical names: a Republican incumbent and a retired teacher who posed a potential spoiler threat.
The ruling marks the latest in a string of judicial setbacks for administration efforts to intervene in state-run election administration. The Alaska challenge was filed last month at the direction of President Trump, asking the court to block certification of the state’s Senate results under specific conditions.
Under the administration’s proposed scenario, the federal lawsuit sought to halt certification if incumbent Senator Daniel S. Sullivan lost the contest but would have emerged victorious had the ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan, the retired teacher, been credited to the incumbent instead. Furthermore, the legal filing demanded an official inquiry into whether individuals who selected the retired teacher on their ballots genuinely intended to cast their votes for the sitting senator.
The dismissal in Alaska aligns with a broader pattern of federal courts pushing back against federal intervention in local voting procedures. On Friday, a U.S. District Court in California barred the administration from threatening prosecution against state and local election administrators who failed to follow federal directives regarding ballot handling.
Simultaneously, a federal appeals court panel on Friday rejected a bid to compel California election officials to set aside roughly 20,000 mail-in ballots. The administration had argued those ballots were mailed to potential noncitizens.
