Attorney General Todd Blanche doubled down on his threats against the election in Alaska in an interview on Fox News Tuesday, as voters began to flood in for the midterm election.
He reiterated his claim that the campaign of a second man named "Dan Sullivan" against the incumbent Republican senator of the same name could be the basis for a criminal fraud scheme.
"There is a scenario where the incumbent, Senator Sullivan, could lose but really he didn't lose," said Blanche. "Because of ranked-based voting, it's clear that voters were confused. That's why you need to preserve the ballots because you need to look at the individual ballots potentially to see if there was voter confusion, if it's obvious from the ballot itself that the voter intended to vote for Senator Sullivan but was confused because of the fraud that's taken place there."
The recruitment of so-called "ghost candidates" who have the same or similar name to an incumbent politician is a tactic used by both parties for decades. It's generally not a crime, except in narrow circumstances like campaign finance fraud.
A recent New York Times article quoted a former staffer on Mary Peltola's Democratic Senate campaign, saying that campaign was involved in recruiting the other Sullivan. That staffer went on to retract her claim before the article was even published, and Peltola continues to deny any involvement.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration and state officials in Alaska have threatened to obstruct the election results over the controversy if Peltola ultimately defeats Sullivan.
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