Peltola Wants the Names of Alaskans Whose Ballots Were Rejected. Sullivan and the State Are Fighting Back.

Alaska still doesn’t know who won its U.S. Senate seat, and now the count is in front of a judge. Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign has sued the state for the names of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected, along with the reason each one was tossed. On Monday, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign asked to join the case to fight that request, and the state filed its own motion saying the list would break voters’ privacy.

Oral arguments are set for 10 a.m. Tuesday before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Where the count stands

Peltola leads by 2,517 first-choice votes and holds 48.6% of the more than 215,000 ballots counted so far, the Daily News reported. Tens of thousands of ballots are still waiting to be counted, and some haven’t even arrived yet. Nobody has crossed 50%, so unless that changes, Alaska’s ranked-choice count on Nov. 18 will decide the race. That system lets voters rank candidates; when no one wins a majority, the last-place finishers are dropped and their voters’ next choices are added in. The state certifies the result on Nov. 25.

What Peltola is asking for

The campaign, Alaskans for Mary, filed a seven-page complaint Friday against the Division of Elections, its director Carol Beecher, and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees elections. It wants a copy of the absentee register showing the “accept or reject code” on every returned absentee ballot, or other records naming the voters and why their ballots were rejected. It says it first asked regional election offices for that on Oct. 27.

The campaign argues Alaska’s public records law requires the state to hand it over. “No Alaska statute protects the requested information from disclosure,” the complaint says, and the campaign “cannot ensure that its voters’ lawful votes were properly counted without knowing whose absentee ballots were rejected or questioned, and why.” (unga.news covered the original filing here.)

Sullivan: follow the rules everyone else follows

Sullivan’s campaign told the court what it thinks the list is really for. Peltola, its motion says, wants “to identify preliminarily-rejected (absentee) ballots that it believes were submitted by Democratic voters, and to use that information to seek to influence election officials’ decisions whether to count those ballots — all outside the statutorily prescribed information-disclosure and absentee-review process Alaska law makes available to all candidates and their observers.”

In plain words: every campaign already gets to send observers to watch the state review absentee ballots. Sullivan’s side says Peltola wants a private shortcut that would let one campaign work the rejected pile. “Peltola now asks this Court to disregard the law and to short-circuit the legally prescribed process for ensuring that every lawful ballot is counted,” the filing says.

The campaign also turned Peltola’s own argument around. “Indeed, if Plaintiff’s interest is sufficient to support this suit, then Alaskans for Dan Sullivan’s reciprocal interest is sufficient to support intervention,” it says. Its stated interest is “the accurate and lawful tabulation and certification of votes,” “the equal treatment of the ballots that will decide it,” and “the integrity of the ongoing vote count.”

“Our campaign is following Alaska precedent to make sure every legally cast ballot is counted, and we remain confident that when every one of those ballots is counted, Senator Sullivan will win,” Sullivan spokesman Nate Adams said Monday.

The state: this is private, and it isn’t final

Alaska’s Department of Law, defending the elections division, says Peltola is asking for something the law doesn’t require and voters wouldn’t want. The campaign wants the division to “publicize private information about absentee voters’ ballots before that information is confirmed and before the voters themselves are notified,” the state’s Monday motion argues.

“The information implicates voters’ constitutional right to privacy because many people would not want the world to know that they may have made a mistake in absentee voting,” the motion says. It adds that the campaign already has “view-only” access to watch the review board work, and never explained why it needs to take voters’ information “outside of that confidential environment.” The division, it says, “has protected the privacy of absentee voters for years, and the Court should not order it to change its practice (and divert its limited resources) midway through this crucial phase of the general election.”

Peltola’s side says it is simply protecting voters. “We are confident that Mary will win this race,” her campaign said Friday. “The campaign is ensuring transparency, timeliness, and accuracy as the counting process continues and every Alaskans’ voice is heard.”

Why rejected ballots matter here

Absentee ballots get rejected for things like a late postmark or a missing signature or witness. Alaska has no “curing” process, meaning voters can’t fix a small mistake after the fact. In 2024 the division rejected about 1,300 ballots, many for “improper or insufficient witnessing,” the Daily News reported. In a race this close, which ballots count is the whole ballgame, and that’s exactly why both sides want the rules applied the same way to everyone.

There is also a second fight. The Justice Department, on President Trump’s orders, sued last month to stop certification if Sullivan narrowly loses and to set aside ballots cast for the other Dan Sullivan on the ballot, a retired Petersburg educator, for a possible look at whether those votes were meant for the senator. A federal judge dismissed that suit Nov. 1; the government has appealed to the 9th Circuit, which isn’t expected to have both sides’ briefs until Jan. 11.

What to watch: whether Judge Matthews lets Sullivan into the case, whether he orders the rejected-ballot list released before the count wraps up, and the next batches of ballots ahead of the Nov. 18 ranked-choice count.