Politics
Alaska Senate Race Features Two Dan Sullivans Amid Ballot‑Stacking Allegations
The upcoming Alaska Senate ballot for the U.S. midterm elections lists two candidates named Dan Sullivan: the incumbent Republican senator and a retired teacher with no prior political experience. The New York Times reported that aides to Democrat Mary Peltola, who is challenging the incumbent, helped recruit candidates with names similar to Sullivan’s in an attempt to manipulate the ballot and siphon votes from the incumbent. The controversy has sparked a political firestorm in the United States and prompted President Donald Trump to order a Justice Department investigation into alleged voter fraud. Trump described the scheme as “total election fraud.” Peltola has denied the accusations, saying the dispute distracts voters from their concerns. U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman said Democrats had “orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy to recruit and prop up Daniel J Sullivan as a sham candidate,” adding that the matter is being taken “extremely seriously.” The second Dan Sullivan announced his Senate candidacy on May 29, three days before Alaska’s June 1 filing deadline. He has repeatedly denied any Democratic push behind his candidacy. The Times’ reporting alleged that people aligned with Peltola, her campaign’s lawyers and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee coordinated an initiative to recruit candidates who could dilute Sullivan’s support, a strategy known as “ballot stacking.” The strategy involves encouraging candidates to enter a race not to win but to influence the distribution of votes and improve another candidate’s chances. Alaska has four candidates on the ballot, and the presence of two candidates named Sullivan could potentially confuse voters. Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered a criminal investigation. Peltola said she knew nothing about any other candidate on the ballot except herself and the incumbent and that she was not interested in tricking voters. The race is considered key to control of the U.S. Senate. Past instances of ballot stacking show that the strategy can work at times. In Florida’s 2020 state Senate race, Republican operative Frank Artiles allegedly recruited a namesake candidate to undermine Democratic incumbent Jose Javier Rodriguez. Artiles paid Alex Rodriguez, who shared the incumbent’s surname, to run as an independent and divert ballots from the Democrat to his Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia. Rodriguez received more than 6,000 votes, and the incumbent lost by 32 votes. Rodriguez later pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2021 and cooperated with investigators; Artiles was convicted and fined. In 2024, Washington’s Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson was joined by two namesakes in the primary race after a Republican activist was alleged to have paid the other two Fergusons to run. Ferguson threatened legal action, the decoys dropped out, and Ferguson was elected governor. Other historical examples include John F. Kennedy’s 1946 Massachusetts primary, where a second candidate named Joseph Russo entered the Democratic primary and collectively received 6,460 votes while Kennedy received 22,183 votes and won the nomination. In India, the tactic is common but not always successful. In the 2019 national election, Congress president Rahul Gandhi faced three namesakes in Wayanad, Kerala, yet won by a landslide with 706,367 votes. In the 2014 national election, Bollywood actor Hema Malini faced two namesakes in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, and won decisively. In Mahasamund, Chhattisgarh, Congress candidate Ajit Jogi faced seven other candidates named Chandu Lal Sahu; the BJP candidate won by nearly 11,000 votes while the namesakes collectively received 62,934 votes. In the same election, incumbent MP K Sudhakaran from Congress was defeated by 6,566 votes; his two namesakes received 2,745 and 4,240 votes respectively.