10
Loading video...
By Lars Hanson
Associate News Editor
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Marvin Willard Jr. has never lived anywhere but Alaska. A Tlingit man from the Chilkat Valley and the village of Klukwan, he says he has followed this year's U.S. Senate race "fairly close"—close enough to know his ballot will carry two men named Dan Sullivan, and close enough to have decided that this is not what keeps him up at night.
"I don't think there should even be an issue on that," Willard told Newsweek.
What he wanted to talk about was the cost of living. "Why don't you raise money to offset our fuel costs in Alaska?" he asked of the candidates and the money pouring in behind them. "Why don't you raise money to offset all the food prices?"
Read More on News
Whether voters can tell the two men apart is only half of what hangs over Tuesday's election. The other half is whether anyone tried to make it harder for them. That question is now the subject of federal and state criminal investigations, and it is at the center of a New York Times report alleging Democratic involvement in recruiting the second Sullivan, which Mary Peltola's campaign denies.
The Alaskans who spoke with Newsweek in the race’s final days were divided on whether the ballot itself was easy to read. One also said that if anyone deliberately tried to mislead voters, it should be taken very seriously.
The Ballot, Briefly
President Donald Trump says the ballot is the problem. On October 25, he argued it should have called his endorsed candidate "Senator Dan Sullivan" rather than "incumbent," because "a lot of people don't know what incumbent means." As printed, it lists Dan S. Sullivan as a registered Republican and the incumbent, and a retired Petersburg schoolteacher as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party at all.
...
In June, the state’s elections director disqualified the second Sullivan, determining that he had filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead.” Two Alaska courts overruled her, finding no state law requiring a candidate to run in good faith. In August's primary, the senator drew 41.4 percent of the vote and his namesake 2.5 percent.
On Sunday, a federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit, which Trump said he ordered, that sought to delay certification if the senator lost and the votes cast for his namesake could have changed the result. The department plans to appeal, and federal and state investigators are still at work.
That is the version of the story the country has been following. The Alaskans who spoke to Newsweek were telling a different one.
'Opens Up for Mistakes'
In Wasilla, where Trump rallied beside the senator in mid-October, Ronny Johansson gives his neighbors the benefit of the doubt. "Surely the majority of voters have the ability to make out the difference between the two Sullivans," he said. But he also saw the potential for confusion: "Having two similar names on the ballot definitely opens up for mistakes."
In a race forecasters call a toss-up, a mistake doesn't have to be common to matter. Johansson refuses to let either party off the hook. "Stacking the ballots isn't new, and is a tactic that both parties have used before," he said. "But that doesn't diminish the seriousness of cheating and being fraudulent in elections. This is something that has to be taken very seriously and must be stopped."
"The voters deserve truly honest elections," he said. "Therefore the system has to be changed."
‘Total Confusion’
For Henry Symons, the mistakes Johansson worries about aren’t hypothetical. “Yes, total confusion!” he said.
Symons said he was voting early in Kenai when a friend realized they had marked the wrong Dan Sullivan. Election workers destroyed their ballot and gave them a new one. Symons added that he would have made the same mistake if his friend hadn’t warned the group. Newsweek could not independently confirm the account.
The Alaskan also said he believed the situation was deliberate: “Totally a setup!" Peltola’s campaign and national Democrats deny any role in the second Sullivan’s candidacy, and investigators have not publicly named any targets.
Innokenty Lestenkof has heard similar worries, especially from older voters. “I definitely agree it confuses people, especially the elderly,” he said.
Several of his elderly friends, he said, asked him how they could be sure they were voting for the right Sullivan. His answer was the label Trump says too few people understand: “I said the one with incumbent next to him.”
'No One is Confused'
Christy O'Brien rejects the premise outright. "No one is confused," she said. "Everyone knows there are two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. It has been on the news forever and is a non-issue."
She points to August's results as her proof. "If people were confused, there would have been a more even split in the primary," she said, "but there wasn't an even split or anywhere even close to it."
The general election will test that with a much larger electorate. About a quarter of Alaska’s registered voters cast ballots in the August primary, according to the Division of Elections, and general elections typically draw far more.
'Political Theater'
Michelle Chase is an undeclared voter, one of the many Alaskans who don't belong to a party, and she says she votes for the person, not the label. "It's not a real concern," she said. "It was easy to distinguish between the two Dans on the ballot. The issue was already addressed by the courts in AK."
What's left, as she sees it, is a performance. "It's just political theater at this point," she said.
'Everybody's Interested in Alaska'
Willard traces his lineage to the Eagle Nest House in Sitka, and his view of the race starts with the land. "All of our resources took thousands of years to get this plush," he said. "We should be protecting it, because the longer you sit on plush real estate like Alaska, the more it's going to be worth in the future."
He doubts that resource development, including the proposed natural-gas project, would leave enough behind for Alaskans. Its backers argue it would bring jobs and revenue. "If you want to benefit us," Willard said, "then give us 51% of the profits."
He is just as skeptical of the national attention now trained on the state. He sees the fight over the ballot as an effort to sway votes, and he directed that criticism at both national figures and Alaska's own officeholders. He remembered a time when companies in the Lower 48 wouldn't even ship to Alaska. "Now all of a sudden everybody's interested in Alaska," he said.
Investigators and Senator Sullivan's campaign treat the recruitment allegations as a serious question about whether voters were deliberately misled, and those inquiries are still open. Willard's frustration is broader. "There's candidates that tell you what they're going to do for Alaska," he said, "and there's candidates that point the other finger." Too many, he believes, avoid specifics for a reason: "They don't want to be held accountable."
'Yeah, the Truth'
Asked what people outside Alaska might be missing, Willard answered in three words. "Yeah, the truth."
His advice for voters was just as short: "Stay off social media. Don't believe everything you see." The campaign emails filling his inbox tell him how much his children are worth. "Well, my kids should have been worth that much to begin with," he said.
Johansson said the system has to change. Chase said the courts had already settled the matter. O'Brien said the primary results spoke for themselves. Willard asked why the money pouring into the race isn't going toward what Alaskans pay for fuel and food. On the narrow question of the ballot itself, they split. O’Brien, Chase and Willard said Alaskans can tell the two men apart. Symons and Lestenkof said some cannot. Johansson said most can, but that the ballot leaves room for mistakes.
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: Steven Frank and Edward T. Cummins
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines