Blanche: DOJ lawsuit not trying to ‘stop the certification of Alaska’s election’

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Saturday that the Justice Department is not trying to stop the certification of Alaska’s election, referring to a lawsuit filed this week which claimed to “protect the integrity” of the election.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the district of Alaska, claims that the inclusion of a candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) could give Democrat Mary Peltola an unfair advantage in the upcoming Senate election.

The lawsuit filing said Daniel J. Sullivan entered the Senate race “as a Republican with the intention of misleading” the incumbent senator’s supporters, and that the sole purpose of his candidacy is “to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.”

“Should Alaska certify any electoral results tainted by the inclusion on the ballot of Daniel J. Sullivan … the State and its officers will fail in its obligation to protect the integrity of its election,” the filing reads.

“The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska,” it added.

Blanche, in a post on social platform X , said the lawsuit, which President Trump has said he directed to be filed, “does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska’s election.”

“This litigation seeks to ensure that after Alaskans cast their ballots, they are preserved in a manner so that only Alaska’s governing officials have the information necessary to make a determination as to whether Alaskan voters were confused or mislead,” he added.

In an interview with MS Now, Peltola called the Justice Department’s lawsuit “a very desperate attempt to cling to power.”

“We’ve been running great elections for decades. There have never really been any abnormalities or irregularities to speak of,” the Democratic Senate nominee said. “I have total confidence in Alaskans’ ability to know who they’re voting for.”

Earlier this year, Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign faced legal challenges with the director of the Alaska Division of Elections, Carol Beecher, trying to remove him from the primary ballot and disqualify his campaign, citing his logo’s similarities to Sen. Sullivan’s.

The Petersburg resident with no party affiliation , challenged the measure in court, leading to a Superior Court judge’s ruling in June that allowed him to stay on the ballot for the state’s primary in August.