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‘Other’ Dan Sullivan appeals removal from US Senate election ballot as legislators question state’s decision
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jun 22
- 5 min read
Petersburg challenger, attorneys advising lawmakers say state can’t judge candidates’ motives in deciding whether they’re eligible to run for office
By Mark Sabbatini and Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
A Petersburg man decertified as a U.S. Senate candidate because he has the same name as incumbent Dan Sullivan filed a legal challenge against the Alaska Division of Elections on Monday.
Questions about whether the division’s actions were proper were also raised Monday during a legislative hearing in Anchorage. Democratic and independent lawmakers were largely critical of the state’s actions, while Republicans were generally supportive.
The state’s June 15 decertification of Dan J. Sullivan on the basis he "filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality," according to a notice sent to him by Carol Beecher, the division’s director.
The Sullivan from Petersburg, in his appeal filed in Alaska Superior Court, asserts the state’s action lacks legal justification.
“Nothing in Alaska law regulates in any way the private motivations that draw individuals to declare or campaign for office,” the filing states.
Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, entered the race as a Republican shortly before the June 1 deadline. Two-term incumbent Dan S. Sullivan is also a Republican, prompting accusations and two formal complaints by Republican officials the namesake challenger was trying to boost the candidacy of Democratic challenger Mary Peltola.
Peltola’s campaign and Democratic party officials have denied any involvement in Dan. J. Sullivan’s campaign or decision to run for office.
Steve Kirch, a spokesperson for the state elections division, told the Associated Press on Monday the agency had no comment and does not discuss “ongoing reviews, investigations or related proceedings.”
The state is scheduled to print ballots June 28, according to the decertification notice sent by Beecher.
The quick removal of Dan J. Sullivan as a candidate and short timeline before the printing of ballots prompted a joint hearing Monday of the House judiciary and state affairs committees. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat who chairs the judiciary committee, said the hearing wasn’t to determine if the Petersburg resident meets the constitutional requirements to be a candidate or “whether anyone believes his motives are pure.”
“This hearing is about a much narrower and in many ways much more important question: What authority does the Division of Elections have to remove a candidate from the ballot, and has that authority been exercised consistently?” Gray said. “Those questions matter because public confidence in elections depends on more than accurate vote counting. It depends on the public's confidence that the rules are applied equally to everyone.”
Plenty of opinions, without any resolution, were offered by attorneys and lawmakers during the two-hour hearing.
Andrew Dunmire, the Alaska Legislature’s nonpartisan attorney, reiterated a finding from a June 17 memo that the elections division does not appear to have authority to disqualify the Petersburg Sullivan under the provisions in state law cited by Beecher. He said the U.S. Constitution lists three qualifications to be a U.S. senator: at least 30 years of age, a U.S. citizen for nine years and an inhabitant of the state represented.
“Any attempt to put qualifications on top of those three violates the constitution so, for example, to look into trying to determine what a person's motives are to run for office would not be appropriate under that case, because having a certain motive or not having a certain motive is not one of those three qualifications,” Dunmire said.
Questions about whether a candidate is intentionally allowed to deceive voters by using the same name and a similar campaign website — assertions made in Beecher’s decertification letter — were asked of Dunmire by Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake.
“We can still enforce reasonable procedural requirements such as filing deadlines, signatures, fees, basic affirmations and all that,” he said. “If you don't meet those procedural requirements then you can't be on the ballot…(Beecher) is not making a judgment on whether or not Daniel J. Sullivan from Petersburg is qualified to be a senator. She's making a judgment on whether or not, in her opinion, based on the (state law), is he qualified to be on the ballot.”
Dunmire said while the state can legally impose certain filing requirements, but that latitude doesn’t extend to scrutinizing a candidate’s motivations for filing.
Similar legal opinions were offered by two other attorneys with election experience invited to testify during the hearing. One of them, former Senate Judiciary Chair Hollis French, referenced a challenge by the Alaska Democratic Party to the 2024 U.S. House candidacy of Eric Hafner, a New York prison inmate who was allowed to remain on the ballot.
“I don’t think you need any special legal training to smell a rat here,” French said. “If a prisoner with no ties to the state of Alaska in New York state can be put on the ballot for federal office in the state of Alaska, I think the Division of Elections is foreclosed from then on engaging in what they’ve engaged in this case.”
The hearing did not include any participation from Division of Elections officials. Beecher and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees the elections division, both declined invitations to appear.
A subpoena from the committee chairs was issued to Beecher on Sunday to appear the next day — which Gray acknowledged was a rare step. Dahlstrom, in a response, declared the state would seek to quash the subpoena in court unless legislators agreed to delay the appearance date. The subpoena was lifted when Dahlstrom and Beecher agreed to appear at a second hearing on July 22.
Audio of Monday’s hearing was blasted from a speaker on the sidewalk outside the Division of Elections office in downtown Juneau, where six protesters of the decertification gathered. It was the second protest of the decision outside the office within the last two weeks. Protesters said they chose to play the hearing outside because of Beecher’s absence.
“That is eschewing accountability for her actions and so we're here to bring the hearing to the Division of Elections,” said Anjuli Grantham, an organizer of the protest and volunteer with Juneau for Democracy, a local grassroots group. “We know the staff are in there right now and we are here so that they can see that we're paying attention. We demand accountability, and we demand that they do what they can to get Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot, but more than that, they follow the Constitution.”
She said she knows of no other reasons Dan J. Sullivan was disqualified apart from his name.
“When we first found out that it seemed like Carol Beecher was going to disqualify Dan J. Sullivan, we had the picket out here because we wanted the Division of Elections to see that we demand accountability and we demand the Constitution is followed,” Grantham said of the June 12 protest.
“This is a sign of authoritarian slippage on the part of the State of Alaska, and so that's our main concern is that any eligible person should be able to run for office,” she said.
Grantham pointed to the state giving private voter data to the U.S. Department of Justice and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 64 as other examples of questionable actions Alaska has taken around elections in the last year.
“We are insisting that the State of Alaska hold the line and follow the rule of law,” she said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306. Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
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