Staff Reports
President Trump has publicly demanded that votes for two minor candidates in Alaska be simply added to Senator Dan Sullivan’s total and that the race be called immediately. The posts were loud, blunt and meant to cut through what many Republicans see as slow counting and courtroom games. Trouble is, election law and ranked‑choice voting have other ideas — and that clash is now the center of the fight over the Alaska Senate race.
Trump’s claim: add the “decoy” votes and call it
On social media, President Trump pointed to two small vote totals — the Petersburg candidate Daniel J. Sullivan and Gerald Heikes — and declared that those ballots should be treated as votes for Senator Dan Sullivan. The arithmetic Trump posted was simple and dramatic: add those few thousand votes and the incumbent is well ahead. For activists and many GOP voters this is comforting and obvious. For election officials, judges and voting‑system experts, you can’t lawfully reassign votes that way, especially in a ranked‑choice system where voters’ second choices matter.
Why the quick fix won’t fly — ranked‑choice and the courts
Alaska’s rules allow ballots to arrive after Election Day and then run a ranked‑choice retabulation if no one reaches 50 percent. That makes Election Night anything but final in this big, sparsely populated state. Data analysts found that many ballots that picked the Petersburg “Daniel Sullivan” as first choice actually list Mary Peltola as a second choice — meaning those votes would likely transfer to Peltola under RCV, not to Senator Sullivan. A federal judge also said a court can’t order the kind of ballot segregation the Justice Department sought, and the DOJ has appealed. Bottom line: you can shout arithmetic from a rooftop, but you can’t rewrite voter intent or the rules on the fly.
Investigations, politics and how Republicans should respond
There is a separate criminal probe into whether operatives recruited a namesake to run. Federal prosecutors have sent target letters and investigators are asking questions. That deserves a thorough and fast look — if people tried to game the ballot, they should be prosecuted. At the same time, Republicans should not undercut the legal process by demanding immediate, extrajudicial reassignments of ballots. Support Senator Sullivan? Absolutely. Demand quick, transparent investigations? Yes. But don’t pretend the rules can be bypassed just because the politics feel urgent.
Conclusion — insist on results and rule of law
This episode is messy, but it shows two things clearly: one, bad actors who try to toy with names on ballots deserve the full force of the law; two, conservatives cannot win by embracing shortcuts that ignore election rules and voter intent. President Trump’s demand was theatrical and rallied the base, but the solution is simple and boring: let officials finish counting, let judges and prosecutors finish investigating, and then, if wrongdoing is proved, push for reforms so small‑name games don’t decide big races. Voters want clear winners — not soap operas stretched over weeks — and Republicans should demand both justice and a clean, enforceable system.
