Feds Sic FBI on Donors to Block a Senate Count

Two FBI agents showed up at a constituent's home in Sitka on Friday afternoon and asked whether the person knew which Dan Sullivan they had donated money to. That's the state of play in Alaska, where the federal government is knocking on doors to ask citizens who they 'really' supported in a Senate race.

State Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, listed as nonpartisan, relayed the visit to CNN. "It's astounding," she said. "This is just out of control and I'm frustrated that these resources are being used to knock on doors in person." The Associated Press reported Friday that several other Daniel J. Sullivan donors got the same visit from agents.

Who Has the Power

The door-knocking is the sharp end of a lawsuit filed at President Donald Trump's direction. The Department of Justice wants a federal judge to halt certification of a possible win by Democrat Mary Peltola until it's determined whether voters were confused by a second candidate on the ballot with the same name as her Republican rival, Sen. Dan Sullivan. The DOJ also issued a wave of subpoenas and announced a criminal investigation. Trump demanded that Peltola be prosecuted.

The legal hook is thin. The administration points to a preamble to a 1990s voter registration law and says it gives Washington responsibility for the 'integrity' of federal elections. It says it's simply combating fraud by preventing the Democrat from being declared the victor in a race that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. Election law experts have roundly criticized the complaint.

On Friday, the DOJ went further. It asked the judge to separate every ballot showing a vote for the second Dan Sullivan, so someone could determine whether those voters were fooled into wasting their votes. Alaska's attorney general's office called that "both disturbing and impossible," and said it couldn't be done without violating voter privacy. The state said there was "no reason for this Court to entertain this meritless lawsuit any longer."

What They're Calling 'Integrity'

The American Civil Liberties Union put the stakes bluntly in its filing urging dismissal. "Imagine if the federal executive could pluck a few words like 'election integrity' from some statutory preamble and, on that basis alone, bend the machinery of state elections to his will, preemptively blocking certification of a U.S. Senate election to protect his preferred candidate from defeat and then subjecting voters to a law-enforcement-led inquest about who they 'really' supported."

Nobody here is clean. The New York Times reported this week that internal texts and posts appear to show Peltola's campaign was involved in recruiting the second Sullivan, a retired school teacher in the remote fishing village of Petersburg. The report drew on interviews with her former campaign manager, texts, and contributions from a political group backing Peltola to an out-of-state Democratic consultant who recruited him. Peltola denies involvement. Alaska's Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, announced a state probe and condemned the placement.

But the Alaska Supreme Court ruled this summer that the second candidate met every legal requirement to stay on the ballot. The state's filing says the new revelations don't change that. "Not every wrong can be righted in federal court," it wrote. State officials, it added, "carefully designed the ballot to minimize voter confusion." Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. appears on the ballot with no party label; the senator is listed as a Republican and the incumbent.

Who Gets Crushed

The cost lands on ordinary people: a retired teacher in Petersburg whose name is now the center of a federal criminal inquiry, and donors in Sitka who opened their doors to agents asking how they spent their own money. Voters are being told their ballots might get sorted, examined and second-guessed by the apparatus.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects have lined up. Peltola's campaign and voting rights groups urged Judge Sharon L. Gleason to dismiss the case, putting them in unusual alignment with Alaska's Republican-run state government. Two factions of the same ruling class, fighting over who gets to run the machinery, with voters as the raw material.

The count itself is slow. CNN reported that Alaska is among the slowest states to report results and a winner might take two weeks to determine. Mail ballot deadlines run 10 and 15 days after the election if postmarked by Election Day, and ranked choice tabulation only happens after the 15-day period if no candidate gets 50% on the first ballot. Control of the Senate may hang on it, and a federal judge's ruling on whether to even hold a hearing.