Trump sees red in one-word all-caps rage post after court says he can’t stop Alaska’s two Dan Sullivans ballot

Trump sees red in one-word all-caps rage post after court says he can’t stop Alaska’s two Dan Sullivans ballot Trump has demanded investigations and prosecutions into the alleged ‘ballot stacking.’ a practice that is legal even if ethically dubious - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Already a member? Log in President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out with a monosyllabic Truth Social post decrying the federal court decision tossing out a lawsuit intended to block the certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race should Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan lose. The president’s post included no text save for an all-caps, large-type label applied atop an image of Alaska’s senate ballot labelling the ballot a “SCAM.” The Senate contest in the Last Frontier pits GOP incumbent Dan Sullivan against Mary Peltola, who previously held Alaska’s lone at-large House seat. Polls have shown Peltola with a narrow lead over Sullivan, and Trump has spent days railing against the conduct of that race over the presence of a second candidate on the ballot who shares the incumbent senator’s name. The state’s ranked-choice ballot lists the current senator with his middle initial as “Sullivan, Dan S” with notations that he is a “Registered Republican” and the incumbent. The other similarly-named candidate is listed above him as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr” without any party identification. Trump has baselessly suggested that Alaska voters are so ignorant that they would not know the meaning of the word “incumbent” and the presence of the second Sullivan on the ballot led Trump to push for legal action over concerns that votes intended for the incumbent would be siphoned away. His Truth Social tantrum comes less than a day after U.S District Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed a lawsuit which demanded an investigation into whether votes cast for the second Dan Sullivan, a retired teacher, were instead meant to be for the incumbent senator. State officials called the suit baseless, arguing it would be impossible to make such a determination without breaching voter privacy. And in her ruling the judge agreed, writing that the remedies the federal government requested were "infeasible" given the high volume of votes already cast. "More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified 'investigation' of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy," she wrote. Last week, The New York Times reported that Peltola’s campaign was connected to efforts to entice the second Sullivan to enter the race, though Sullivan said in June that he’d had no communications with the Peltola campaign about his candidacy. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement in a statement, and Peltola herself has said she is “not interested in tricking voters.” State courts, including the Alaska Supreme Court, previously rejected Republican challenges to remove the retired teacher from the August open primary ballot. Republicans, including allies of Trump, also have a long track record of supporting decoy candidates in political races. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments