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By Lars Hanson
Associate News Editor
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Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said Sunday that state investigators are examining possible wrongdoing, including conduct that "might resemble perjury," surrounding the disputed candidacy of a second Dan Sullivan in Alaska's tight Senate race.
"We are in the midst of investigations as to determine if there was any wrongdoing," the Republican governor said in an interview with WABC radio's The Cats Roundtable, according to Fox News, "especially anything that might resemble perjury."
His remarks came as Democrat Mary Peltola led Republican Senator Dan Sullivan by 2,517 votes, nearly a week after the polls closed. The candidate at the center of the inquiry, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg, drew 1.7 percent of the vote as of Monday afternoon. That is 3,651 votes, more than the current margin. He has denied coordinating with Peltola's campaign.
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The investigations, a federal lawsuit and the tight race have intensified a separate fight over Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which Dunleavy called “very confusing” in the same interview. Voters are deciding, for the second time in two years, whether to repeal it through Ballot Measure 2.
Dunleavy's office did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment by publication.
The state's investigation followed a New York Times report in late October that people connected to Peltola's campaign and national Democrats had worked to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan. Peltola's campaign has denied involvement in recruiting him. Federal prosecutors are pursuing their own inquiry, and the Justice Department has sued to block certification of a Peltola win if votes for him could have changed the outcome.
"When The New York Times article came out, you know, we already knew a lot of what was happening there," Dunleavy said Sunday.
It remains unclear whether recruiting Daniel J. Sullivan would violate any criminal law. Ballot stacking is not illegal at the federal level, and the Justice Department has not said which offenses it is examining. Michael Morley, a Florida State University law professor, called the department's lawsuit "completely meritless."
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What the Ranked Ballot Changes
The lawsuit rests on a simple premise: that votes for one Sullivan were meant for the other. Alaska's system complicates that arithmetic.
No candidate is expected to reach 50 percent, so the race will likely go to a ranked-choice tabulation on November 18. If current standings hold, Daniel J. Sullivan will be the first candidate eliminated, and his ballots will move to each voter's next choice.
Scott Kendall, the Anchorage attorney who wrote the 2020 ballot measure that created the system, says that is the point. Ranked-choice voting "neutralizes the impacts of schemes and spoiler candidates," he told Newsweek. A voter confused by the two names, he said, could rank both, and the ballot would ultimately count for the senator.
The ballots counted so far "show minimal confusion," Kendall told Newsweek, and "Decoy Dan is unlikely to have a real impact on the outcome."
Repeal Now, the group behind Ballot Measure 2, does not share that confidence. It told Newsweek it had heard from voters who believed they had picked the wrong Dan Sullivan, and from others who did not rank at all and learned only later that their ballots might not count in the final round.
"A majority earned by discarding people's first-choice votes is not a real majority," the group told Newsweek.
'Very Confusing'
The state's own records put numbers on that debate. In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, the first statewide test of the system, 499 ballots were overvoted, meaning two candidates were marked in the same ranking, out of about 266,800 counted in the race, according to a Newsweek analysis of the Division of Elections' round-by-round reports. In the 2024 U.S. House race, the figure was 572 of about 335,900. Both rates were under 0.2 percent.
A larger share dropped out before the final round because voters had not ranked either finalist: about 3.4 percent in the 2022 Senate race and 2.3 percent in the 2024 House race.
"The data doesn't back the claim that voters are confused by our election system," No on 2, the campaign opposing Ballot Measure 2, told Newsweek, adding that ballot spoilage rates are as low as they were under the old system.
Kendall rejected the governor's description outright. "The governor's characterization is false, and he knows it," he told Newsweek. He added a jab at Dunleavy, who leaves office next month: "It's unfortunate that a governor who rode into office on a campaign of misinformation is choosing to end his term in the same manner."
Kendall, now of counsel at Cashion Gilmore & Lindemuth, has long worked at the center of Alaska politics. He defended Senator Lisa Murkowski's 2010 write-in victory before the state Supreme Court and served as chief of staff to independent then-Governor Bill Walker. His defense of the voting system has made him a frequent target of conservative critics.
A Count Measured in Weeks
Dunleavy also described the count as "a slow system up here in Alaska." Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive through November 13, and those from overseas through November 18. Certification is set for November 25. Kendall told Newsweek the timeline reflects geography and the mail, not the ranked-choice count, which he called "nearly instantaneous."
Peltola told supporters on election night that a long count is "Alaska normal." As of Monday morning, the division's combined ballot report showed about 45,500 absentee ballots, 70,300 early votes and 5,700 questioned ballots. "These numbers are going to vary as absentee ballots are received," division spokesperson Steve Kirch told Newsweek.
A Second Repeal Attempt
Alaskans narrowly adopted the system in 2020. A repeal measure failed in 2024 by 743 votes after a recount. Republican Party leaders then made repeal a top priority, and Repeal Now put the question back on the ballot.
It is trailing again, with "no" votes at 52.3 percent as of Monday afternoon.
The No on 2 campaign told Newsweek it has "a promising lead" but is waiting for every ballot to be counted.
Asked what comes next if the repeal fails, Repeal Now told Newsweek: "That will be up to Alaskans."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Steve Mollman and Edward T. Cummins
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