Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign is suing the state of Alaska to obtain access to records for absentee ballots that were rejected by the Alaska Division of Elections, a new court filing shows. Peltola’s campaign said they previously requested records of the rejected ballots on multiple occasions but were denied access. “Plaintiff cannot…
Page B53From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 7 November 2026
Justice Department abandons hunt for ballots that don't exist; Peltola's campaign sues to see the ones that do.
As it ran on the front
The Justice Department's lawsuit to block Alaska's Senate certification died this week in dismissal, in a courtroom that was never in Alaska. It was born on 24 October in Anchorage, and it came with a condition built into its birth certificate: it only lived if the Republican lost.
Its early beats were noisy and short on evidence. On 28 October, after reading a newspaper account of a second man named Dan Sullivan running in the race, the president called Mary Peltola's campaign's role in the matter illegal and demanded her disqualification. By 29 October, and again on 2 November, the same story was still the only one on offer: Republicans wanted an investigation; no one had found anything to investigate. On 31 October, the president's own attorney told a reporter the thing being demanded — setting aside the disputed ballots — was not even possible under Alaska law. That did not stop the demand. That same day, Peltola's campaign denied any coordination with the second Sullivan and declined to say anything about the federal probe already circling it; four probes, in the end, filed zero charges.…
…(cont) The lawsuit's cousin, filed in California against 20,000 disputed ballots on the same legal theory, met the Supreme Court on 2 November. The Court said no. It was preceded in death, then, by that refusal, and by the four federal probes before it that found nothing to charge. On 3 November, the no was confirmed on television. Days later, the department went to court and asked to drop its own case. That is the obituary: a lawsuit that demanded a state halt its count, named no ballot, found no fraud, and was withdrawn by the people who filed it, after the highest court in the country had already told them to stop.
It is survived, awkwardly, by the side it spent two weeks trying to disqualify. On Friday, Alaskans for Mary — Mary Peltola's own campaign committee — sued the Alaska Division of Elections in Anchorage Superior Court, not to stop a count but to see one: the records identifying every voter whose absentee ballot was rejected. The campaign says it asked for those records more than once and was turned down each time. It cannot, its filing says, be sure the count is fair without them. The hogwash was never the ballots. It was the idea that anyone chasing that lawsuit ever wanted to look at an actual one.
In lieu of flowers, the Alaska Division of Elections could simply release the file.
“They spent weeks hunting a fake ballot and came up with zero charges, zero proof, and a no from the Supreme Court. Now the only lawsuit left standing belongs to the candidate's own campaign, suing the state just to see which of her voters got rejected. The government had the power to go looking and still found nothing; her campaign has to sue for what should already be sitting in a public file.”
“The Department had every right to look into a ballot-stacking scheme — voters deserve a clean count, full stop. Dismissing the case doesn't mean there was nothing there, it just means — well, it means there was nothing there. Did I say that? That's not what I meant.”
Earlier in this story
- Justice Department abandons its own lawsuit against ballots the Supreme Court already let stand. By Mort · the evening edition, 7 November 2026
- Trump sued to block Alaska's count if the Republican lost; a week later Mississippi's trailing Republican tried the same move By Mort · the morning edition, 6 November 2026
- Grand conspiracy probe has spent three lead prosecutors since September and filed zero charges By Lou · the morning edition, 6 November 2026
- Trump demands decoy's 3,600 votes be reassigned, not recounted, to the real Dan Sullivan By Mort · the morning edition, 5 November 2026
- Justice Department's clause for a narrow Republican loss meets a narrow Republican loss, exactly as drafted. By Mort · the evening edition, 5 November 2026
- GOP's mid-decade maps backfire into a dummymander, leaving Democrats holding the pen. By Mort · the evening edition, 5 November 2026
The receipts
Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign sued Alaska election officials Friday, seeking records that would identify voters whose absentee ballots have been rejected as the state continues counting votes in one of the closest 2026 midterm races nationwide. Alaskans for Mary, Peltola’s campaign committee, filed the lawsuit in Alaska…
· Alaska Senate race: what to know about Democrats’ alleged ballot-stacking effort from the morgue, 2 Nov 2026
· Alaska Senate race: what to know about Democrats’ alleged ballot-stacking effort from the morgue, 29 Oct 2026
· Trump rages at Alaska Democrat whose campaign reportedly recruited man with same name as Republican opponent – live from the morgue, 28 Oct 2026
· Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola delays campaign stops after car crash from the morgue, 25 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.