Spoiled Ballots Over ‘Decoy Dan’ Add New Twist to Alaska’s Senate Nail-Biter

As of Friday, at least 90 ballots have been tossed for Alaska voters who marked both U.S. Senate candidates named Dan Sullivan as their first choice, in a race where the top two candidates are separated by fewer than 700 votes.

The campaign of Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan anticipates the number of tossed ballots will grow.

Democrat Mary Peltola is on a path to winning the first round of voting in the Senate race, with a lead of fewer than 700 votes over the incumbent GOP senator. More than 20% of the vote has yet to come in, with a deadline of Nov. 13 for mail ballots to arrive that are postmarked by Election Day.

However, the 3,600 votes for independent candidate Dan J. Sullivan more than compensate for the divide at the top, even as he runs behind third-place Gerald Heikes, a Republican with more than 4,800 votes.

A Republican operative working close to the senator’s campaign told the Daily Signal that it’s “abnormal” to have so many spoiled ballots in the early stages of counting. He expects to see far more as more tranches of vote counts are released.

Dan S. Sullivan’s campaign has contested the ballot’s inclusion of Dan J. Sullivan after the New York Times first reported that aides for Peltola’s campaign recruited the other Dan Sullivan into the race. The Times reported Thursday that Dan J. Sullivan’s second-choice voters broke for Peltola.

The Justice Department sued the Alaska Division of Elections to prevent certification of a Peltola victory if there was evidence that voters mistakenly cast ballots for Dan J. Sullivan instead of Dan S. Sullivan.

Peltola’s campaign argues that Sullivan’s path to victory is “fictitious.”

Under ranked-choice voting, if no candidate wins a majority for the first choice votes, that triggers additional rounds of counting. As last-place finishers are eliminated, their voters’ second choices are allocated. Rounds of counting keep happening until one candidate finally wins a majority. 

According to a campaign memo released Friday, the Sullivan campaign could have an advantage when the subsequent rounds of counting begin.

“Overvotes could be worth a further 90” for the senator, the memo says. It adds, “233 ballots were voided at rank 1 because two ovals were filled. 145 paired Dan Sullivan with his namesake, Heikes or a write-in, and 55 did the same with Peltola. If those overvotes are corrected, Sullivan nets 90.”

The senator’s campaign elaborates on the allocation of second-choice votes.

“Heikes voters who ranked anyone else break for Sullivan 71% to 29%, a net of 1,407 votes on the ballots counted. D.J. Sullivan Jr. voters net Peltola 453, and 657 of his ballots move to Heikes first and then mostly to Sullivan,” the memo says. “Together the transfers move the race about 950 votes toward Sullivan on the ballots counted and about 130 more on the ballots still out, assuming existing trends on ranking behavior hold.”

The operative close to the senator’s campaign noted that many voters cast a single vote for Dan J. Sullivan, making them “bullet voters” in a ranked-choice system. He argued it is unlikely voters would knowingly do this.

Peltola will most likely go on to win under the chaotic system, said Phil Izon, founder of Alaskans for Honest Elections, which opposes ranked -hoice voting.

“Decoy Dan is 100% a product of ranked choice voting and a jungle primary. That combination turns Alaska elections into an insane clown show,” Izon told the Daily Signal.

“There is zero third party representation on the general election ballot,” Izon added. “One of the biggest selling points for the top four ranked choice voting was that third party candidates would be on the ballot in the general election.”

On Monday, the Alaska Division of Elections will announce another update on a new tranche of counted votes. Nov. 18 is the final day for overseas ballots to arrive and be counted.

The Peltola campaign, in a press release and thread on X, argued, “a ranked-choice tabulation will not allow Sullivan to overtake Mary once all the votes are counted.” The post also said, “The second-choice votes of other candidates are far too few to offset Mary’s advantage among the tens of thousands of early and absentee ballots still to be counted.”

“Mischief in Alaska is directly tied to why the system was pushed in the first place,” Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, who testified before the Alaska Legislature in opposition to adopting ranked-choice voting.

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