Vance responds to question about ‘insulting’ Alaska election lawsuit

Vice President Vance on Tuesday slammed an independent candidate with a similar name to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) as committing “electoral fraud” when answering a question about his administration’s lawsuit over the Senate race in the state.

“Why shouldn’t Alaskans find it insulting that the administration appears to be suggesting they can’t read the word ‘incumbent’ on their ballots and know to vote for Senator Sullivan?” a reporter asked Vance on Tuesday.

“Well, I think the question presumes quite a bit. I mean, look, a lot of Alaskans are going to go and look at the ballot and realize exactly what you said, that this is all a big fraud,” the vice president responded.

“But, people are busy. People have lives. People have jobs. And, when you put a person on the ballot explicitly to try to confuse voters, I think that’s the definition of electoral fraud. And I don’t think that we should endorse it,” he added.

Last week, President Trump said he directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file a lawsuit to prevent certification of the Senate election in Alaska if Sullivan loses in this year’s midterms.

The DOJ filed the suit last Thursday, stating the existence of a candidate with a name similar to the incumbent Republican senator’s would result in an invalid win for Democrat Mary Peltola. The president told reporters Friday that he had pushed for the election challenge himself.

At the center of the issue is Dan J. Sullivan — a separate candidate — who is running for the upper chamber in Alaska and will appear on the November ballot against Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.

The top four vote-receiving candidates in Alaska’s primary go on to the general election. The two Sullivans will show up differently on the ballot, with the senator labeled “incumbent” and “Republican.”

The Hill has reached out to Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign for comment.