Judge throws out DOJ attempt to delay certification of Alaska Senate race

By Dan Berman, Tierney Sneed, Jeremy Herb, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge on Sunday threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to segregate ballots and delay certification of Alaska’s Senate race, the latest legal rebuke to a rash of Trump administration attempts to meddle in the 2026 midterms.

US District Judge Sharon Gleason said the federal government doesn’t have the standing to force Alaska to segregate ballots and that such a move would violate the right of voters to cast a secret ballot. Regardless, she added, it’s too late for the courts to force such a major change on the eve of an election.

The Trump administration in its suit argued the presence of a spoiler candidate with the same name as the GOP incumbent warranted a court-ordered investigation into the results if Sen. Dan S. Sullivan lost.

Gleason, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, wrote, “The United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,”

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration in its efforts to inject itself in to states’ voting processes in the final days of the midterm elections. A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a Justice Department demand that California election officials set aside ballots from 20,000 people the administration claims could be noncitizens.

The Trump administration may still appeal both the Alaska and California rulings.

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

The Alaska Senate race, in which Democrat Mary Peltola is trying to unseat Sullivan, was roiled this week by a New York Times report with new details about Democratic involvement in getting Daniel J. Sullivan onto the ballot in a race that could determine which party controls the Senate.

While the civil case played out, the Justice Department also accelerated its criminal probe into the alleged Democratic efforts, and the state’s Republican governor ordered an investigation, while suggesting he could oppose certification depending on the results of the probe.

Alaska officials, Democratic groups and nonpartisan voter advocacy organizations that all opposed the DOJ lawsuit argued the administration had no legal right to drag a federal court into a dispute over Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy that had been settled with state court litigation several months ago.

They argued the DOJ put forward no evidence that voters were confused by his inclusion — particularly as election administrators included several identifiers on the ballot to distinguish him from Sen. Sullivan.

While the Justice Department argued in its lawsuit that the presence of two Sullivans could confuse voters, Gleason wrote in her decision Sunday that voters in fact would be confused if Alaska segregated Daniel J. Sullivan ballots as the Justice Department sought.

“Clearly, if this Court were to order that certain ballots will be segregated and subject to a future and as yet unspecified investigation by law enforcement, it would likely result in voter, ‘confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,’” Gleason wrote. “Such late-breaking changes to the election rules are strongly disfavored.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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