Alaska election official threatens to disqualify Republican who shares name with Sen. Dan Sullivan
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A top Alaska elections official has threatened to disqualify a U.S. Senate candidate who shares the same name and party affiliation as the incumbent president from the state’s August primary Republican Dan Sullivan.
Elections Division Director Carol Beecher said in a letter to challenger Dan Sullivan that her office had received two complaints regarding his eligibility and determined that “the preponderance of the evidence does not support your suitability for the office of United States Senator.”
He set a Thursday deadline for him to provide “any additional information and evidence” in response.
A defiant Sullivan did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on the letter from Beecher. a registered Republican a person who has donated to Republican groups and campaigns in the past. His letter, dated Wednesday and published by the Anchorage Daily News, did not specify evidence that could potentially remove him from the primary ballot, and his office did not respond to requests for comment.
Sullivan’s candidacy has created excitement in one of the most important U.S. Senate races in the country. This is a seat Democrats are targeting try to regain the majority in parliament in this year’s midterm elections.
Senator Sullivan accused his namesake rival of working with Democrats to deceive voters and boost the former Democrat’s chances, his main rival Representative Mary Peltolaa claim they both deny. The rival, who lives in Petersburg’s small fishing community south of Juneau he told the Associated Press Earlier this week, I said that the decision to run for office was “my choice.” He said he had no connection to the Peltola campaign — “zero, nothing, nothing.”
This week, the challenger also pushed back in response to Republican Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom’s announcement that she would launch an investigation into his candidacy.
“The law prohibits your office from denying me access to the ballot simply because Senator Sullivan and the NRSC would prefer that I not be allowed to run,” he wrote, referring to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
He called the investigation “an unprecedented affront to my rights as a candidate and the rights of Alaska voters to choose their own representation in the U.S. Senate.”
It was not immediately clear whether he had retained an attorney to help him stay on the ballot.
Some attorneys also raised questions about Dahlstrom’s investigation; It demanded that Sullivan disclose, among other things, his party affiliation, how long he has used the name Dan Sullivan, his relationship with an advisor, and any interactions he may have had with other candidates in the race or the Democratic Party.
Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, said in his letter to the challenger that the investigation concerns “credible allegations” that he declared his candidacy “not with the intention of running for office in good faith, but with the intention of confusing voters and causing them to mistakenly vote for you instead of the incumbent with the same name and same political party affiliation.”
The questions align with allegations outlined in a letter an attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote to him and Beecher earlier this month.
The ACLU of Alaska said in a statement that it was “not aware of any other situation in which the Lieutenant Governor investigated a particular candidate for reasons other than determining whether a candidate met federal, state, and local eligibility requirements.” The group said it was monitoring the situation.
Jahna Lindemuth, Alaska’s attorney general under an independent governor, said investigating why a person would run for office “begins to violate free speech concerns and other protections under the Constitution.” He said Dahlstrom could label the senator as the incumbent on the ballot if he was concerned about voter confusion.
The Constitution requires senators to be at least 30 years old, have been U.S. citizens for at least nine years, and live in the state they choose to represent at the time of the election. Sullivan, who turns 69 this weekend, told the AP that he moved to Alaska in 1980 and worked for the U.S. Forest Service before changing careers and becoming a teacher. He is now retired.
In the declaration that the election department asks the candidates to fill out, the candidates’ names, the party affiliation they want on the ballot, their addresses and how they want their names to appear are asked. When signing the declaration, candidates are asked to confirm that they meet the citizenship, age and residence requirements.
The department had previously approved the candidacy of rival Sullivan and listed him on its slate as Dan J. Sullivan. The senator is listed as Dan S. Sullivan and the incumbent.
At least one group, One Nation, which has run ads supporting the senator, has begun referring to him as Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
