DOJ seeks court intervention if Alaska Republican loses

Lawsuit cites voter confusion over two candidates named Dan Sullivan

WASHINGTON:

The US Justice Department is seeking to invalidate Alaska's Senate election results if the Republican incumbent loses next month, in a rare legal move that raises questions about the President Donald Trump administration's willingness to accept defeat in the midterms.

In a lawsuit, the Justice Department alleged that Republican Dan J Sullivan Jr, who is running for the Senate, could confuse voters intending to support the incumbent senator, who is also Republican and is also named Dan Sullivan.

Republican officials have claimed that Sullivan Jr is a Democratic ruse to try and tilt the race in which Democrats hope to flip the seat – and help their outside bid to win control of the Senate. Democrats and Sullivan Jr himself have denied this.

The Justice Department asked a judge to halt certification if the incumbent's losing margin is smaller than the votes won by his namesake. US Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested the Justice Department was not trying to interfere in the election, but at the same time would not completely rule out such a scenario.

"It is not DOJ's intention to—and it's never our intention to—improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process," Blanche said. "But you know, to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that.

Of course, I'm not going to say that."

Trump said on Friday that he ordered for filing the lawsuit. "I'm the one who said do it," he said, adding that he told the Justice ?Department to pre-emptively block Alaska from certifying ?the results of its US Senate ?race if the Republican incumbent candidate loses by a narrow margin.

Democrats have accused the Trump administration of seeking to

influence the November vote by expanding

federal control over state-run elections and by repeatedly questioning the integrity of election results.

Mary Peltola, a former tribal judge and Alaska Native, has a strong chance of winning the Senate seat.