DOJ sues to void an election only the Republican could lose, nine days before Alaska votes

As it ran on the front

I had the registration renewal in my coat pocket — not for any reason, that's just where it's lived since August, the one that says if it's not mailed back by the fifteenth they can flag the plate — and I had it out on the counter at the corner store this morning, next to the coffee, when the radio behind the register started in on Alaska. I left the renewal right there on the counter the whole time I listened, which tells you something about my priorities, or maybe just about the coffee.

Here's how we got here, in the order it happened. On October 14th the President told reporters the Senate race up there had a "fake" Dan Sullivan in it — a longshot candidate he said was a Democratic plot to split the vote — and said his administration was looking into it. Two days later, on the 16th, the real Senate debate happened, Sullivan against Mary Peltola, and somewhere in that hour somebody on that stage said "let's have some decorum," which I only mention because decorum is a word you reach for right before you stop having any. Then this past Sunday, the 25th, Senator Thom Tillis went on television and said it was "appropriate to take a look at" the outcome in Alaska, where, he noted, there happen to be two men named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. The lawsuit he was defending — filed by his own Justice Department — asks a court to block certification of that race over "voter confusion," and here is the part I had to read twice: it only does anything if the Republican loses. If Sullivan wins, there's no confusion. When a reporter asked who ordered the suit filed, the Attorney General wouldn't say. The President, asked the same question, said, "I'm the one that said do it."…