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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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While Alaska’s Senate race still remains undecided days after November 3, Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign has filed a lawsuit against Alaska election officials Friday, seeking immediate access to information about absentee ballots that have been rejected during the extremely close election.
The campaign argues that disclosure is necessary to ensure eligible votes are properly counted and to protect the integrity of the race, which has been repeatedly contested in the weeks leading to Election Day due to the presence of a namesake challenger to the incumbent, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan.
The Justice Department sued Alaska election officials last month, seeking to block certification of the race’s result if the incumbent lost and votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. would have helped him win. The lawsuit was dismissed by a state judge on November 1, two days before Election Day.
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As the race is a real toss-up that remains too close to call, with about 600 votes separating Peltola and Sullivan, the result could depend on a few ballots sent by mail or flown in from remote communities. Alaska will accept ballots from overseas voters up to November 18.
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In Mississippi, another U.S. Senate race that remains too close to call, Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is similarly laying the groundwork for possible later litigation, demanding that provisional ballots be set aside.
“These measures are necessary to ensure that each affidavit ballot’s eligibility for counting, and ultimate disposition can be verified,” she said in a letter sent by her lawyers, Lex Political, to election officials in all 82 Mississippi counties on November 5.
Meanwhile, in California, the Trump administration abandoned a federal lawsuit against the state over approximately 20,000 mail-in ballots cast by people it suspected might be non-US citizens. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the withdrawal on Friday, describing it as a victory for the state after a series of court defeats for the federal government.
Mary Peltola’s Lawsuit, Explained
On Friday, Peltola’s campaign group, Alaskans for Mary, sued the Alaska Division of Elections, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom and Director of Elections Carol Beecher over the release of records identifying absentee ballots rejected in the November 3 election. They are also asking why these votes were rejected.
“Plaintiff cannot ensure that its voters’ lawful votes were properly counted without knowing whose absentee ballots were rejected or questioned, and why,” the document filed reads.
The campaign writes that it had requested the records to each regional office of the Division of Elections on October 27, but did not receive a response to its requests.
On November 4, the campaign submitted additional correspondence demanding the requested records by 4:00 p.m. on November 5. The request to “immediately” provide the records was declined “during a telephonic conferral and subsequent email correspondence” on that same day, the lawsuit reads.
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Denied access to the records leaves Peltola’s campaign unable to monitor whether ballots are being properly counted, the team argued, and whether votes for the Democrat were improperly rejected. And time is ticking, they said.
“With the counting of absentee ballots and review by the questioned ballot board currently in progress, and certification deadlines rapidly approaching, each hour and each day that Defendants deny Plaintiff the requested records to which it is entitled costs Plaintiff the opportunity to help ensure that qualified voters have their ballots counted,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit asks an Anchorage court for emergency relief, including a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction compelling the state to provide the records.
Why Alaska’s Division of Elections Has Denied Peltola Access
In a statement released on Friday, the state Department of Law, which represents the lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections, said that it denied Peltola’s campaign access to these records because they have long been treated as confidential.
“Because the information is preliminary, subject to change, and not yet available to affected voters, the Division does not distribute the records separately or allow observers to retain them,” the department said.
“Releasing preliminary information in the manner sought by the lawsuit would create additional burdens during ballot processing and could delay the timely counting of votes. The Division has protected this information for years and will ask the court to protect it too.”
Newsweek contacted Alaska’s Department of Law, Peltola’s and Sullivan’s campaigns for comment by email on Saturday morning.
Mary Peltola vs. Dan Sullivan: What We Know So Far
With over 20 percent of the votes still uncounted as of Saturday morning, Peltola, an Alaska native and former congresswoman, held a narrow lead over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, 48.2 percent to 47.9 percent.
Two other candidates, Republican Gerald Heikes and undeclared “decoy” Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., had 2.3 percent and 1.7 percent of the votes, respectively. The latter initially filed his candidacy as a Republican, but switched to undeclared after being accused of being a fake candidate recruited by Democrats to siphon votes away from the incumbent.
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It might still be days before we know the result of the race.
Assuming that neither Sullivan nor Peltola wins an outright majority, “which appears to be the likeliest outcome,” ranked choice tabulation will take place fifteen days after the election, Russell Luke, Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Alaska Fairbanks, previously told Newsweek.
“This is expected, and simply the result of the voting system and expansive nature of the State. It will be unfortunate if the rest of the country has to wait on Alaska to know the fate of the Senate, but that is a highly likely outcome given the evidence available.”
Cindy Hyde-Smith vs. Scott Colom: What We Know So Far
As of Saturday morning, Republican Hyde-Smith was trailing Democrat Scott Colom by almost 2,000 votes. With 97 percent of votes counted, the Republican incumbent had 48.8 percent of the vote, while Colom was ahead with 49.1 percent. Candidate Ty Pinkins, who ran as independent, garnered 2.1 percent of the votes.
If Colom won, he would become another victorious candidate to make history during these midterms. If elected, the local prosecutor would be Mississippi’s first Black senator since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Hyde-Smith, on the other hand, would become another example of a Donald Trump’s pick who failed to be recognized by voters as the best candidate for the job.
Hyde-Smith was first appointed to fill a vacancy and then won a 2018 special election.
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The result of this race is expected before that of Alaska’s Senate race. Mississippi does not hold runoff elections for U.S. Senate races, even if neither Hyde-Smith nor Colom reach 50 percent of the votes.
Several thousand provisional ballots are expected to still be counted in the race. Mississippi has until November 10 to resolve those ballots. And this is where Hyde-Smith’s request, filed on Thursday by her lawyers, comes into play.
The letter demands that county election officials separate all affidavit ballots from other votes cast in Tuesday’s election, securely preserve them throughout the counting and certification process, and maintain detailed records of each ballot’s status, including whether it has been accepted, rejected or remains unresolved.
It also requires officials to retain all supporting documentation, including ballot envelopes, voter records and chain-of-custody records, to ensure the ballots and associated evidence remain available for any potential legal proceedings.
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“Because these ballots and records are potential evidence in any box examination under § 23-15-911, election contest, or proceeding before the United States Senate, Candidate Hyde-Smith is entitled to their preservation in an unaltered and identifiable state,” the letter states.
Newsweek contacted Hyde-Smith’s and Colom’s campaigns for comment by email on Saturday morning.
Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.
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