On October 29, the Department of Justice filed an amended complaint in the lawsuit United States v State of Alaska, requesting the Court to instruct the Alaska Division of Elections to deny certification of the election result if the result “may be impacted by voter confusion.” The DOJ’s amended complaint pointed to recent reporting by The New York Times regarding intentional actions taken by Peltola-aligned political operatives to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg in order to siphon votes from the incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan. Today, October 30, the Division of Elections filed its response, arguing that the recent reporting does not lend the argument any more legal ground than it had in its initial complaint.
The interveners— Alaskans for Mary and the DSCC and separately the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and two individuals— also filed responses, arguing that the DOJ does not have the legal authority to determine the certification of Alaska’s elections and has not cited a legitimate violation of federal law in its lawsuit.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed an amicus brief arguing that the DOJ failed to state a claim upon which it can obtain relief. The DOJ constructed its complaint on the basis of the National Voter Registration Act, but the “NVRA is a statute that is concerned solely with increasing voter registration while ensuring that state voter rolls remain accurate and current. Accordingly, the NVRA provides no avenue for relief to determine whether a particular candidate can appear on a ballot, including based on any supposed confusion about candidate names.” The amicus brief further explains the history and intent of the NVRA.
The Division of Elections and the interveners made similar arguments, pointing to the lack of connection between the NVRA and the facts of the case. “[The DOJ’s amended complaint] rests on the same meritless theory that the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)—a voter registration law—governs this case, which has nothing to do with voter registration,” states the brief filed by the Alaska Division of Elections. “Because this reading of the NVRA fails, the amended complaint fails.”
“In Count I of the Amended Complaint, DOJ asserts the same claim based on the same unsupportable reading of the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”) that DOJ asserted in its initial complaint, which is built entirely on a snippet from the statement of purpose and finds no purchase whatsoever in the operative text of the statute,” stated the brief filed by Alaskans for Mary and the DSCC.
The brief filed by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and two individual intervenors goes even further, asking the Court not only to dismiss the complaint but to “consider sanctions for this continued abuse of the judicial process.”
The brief also asserts that even if the DOJ’s NVRA argument had merit— which it does not concede— there are other legal reasons the Court should dismiss the complaint: “Even if the United States were within shouting distance of a plausibly pleaded claim, dismissal of this bizarre, eleventh-hour stunt suit would still be required. The relief the United States seeks—indefinitely blocking the certification of the imminent U.S. Senate election—would violate numerous fundamental rights and legal precepts. It would disenfranchise voters and deny their fundamental right to vote. It would require an unadministrable inquisition into individual voters’ intent that would violate the right to a secret ballot. And it would dramatically contravene the Purcell principle, which prevents federal courts from commandeering the machinery of state elections at the last minute even when there is an actual legal basis for doing so, never mind when there is none whatsoever. Any of these are additional, independent grounds for dismissal.”
Judge Sharon Gleason granted expedited consideration and has ordered the DOJ to respond to all three Motions to Dismiss by 1:00 PM today, October 30, 2026. The State and Intervenor-Defendants may file replies by Saturday, October 31, 2026, at noon.
Primary Sources
Please see Updates on United States v State of Alaska: DOJ amends complaint with NYT report of Double Dan Scheme; Alaskans for Mary and League of Women Voters intervene – Must Read Alaska for earlier primary sources.
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