Alaska’s Republican governor announced early Thursday he was ordering an investigation into whether members of Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign should face criminal charges following the revelation that they recruited a candidate with the same name as GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan in a bid to siphon votes away from the incumbent. After the plot was revealed in a Wednesday New York Times report, Gov. Mike Dunleavy described it as “an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates—including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator—to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”
“I am therefore directing the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted. The evidence will determine what happens next,” Dunleavy added. “Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support. Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections. Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable.”
