Judge tosses DOJ lawsuit seeking to delay certification of Alaska Senate race

Updated on: November 1, 2026 / 2:04 PM EST / CBS News

A federal judge in Alaska has thrown out the Trump administration's lawsuit seeking to block certification of the state's Senate election results in this week's midterm elections if the Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.

U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason wrote in a 20-page order Sunday that the Justice Department did not have proper legal standing to bring the suit last week. The suit asked Gleason to block the state's election results from being certified because a teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan is also on the state's ballot, alleging that his candidacy deliberately sought to confuse voters by running with the same ballot name and party affiliation as the state's incumbent senator.

The Justice Department argued that Daniel J. Sullivan's name on the ballot potentially diverted voters, and the Democrat running in the race, Mary Peltola, would benefit as a result.

Gleason said she could not grant the injunction that the Trump administration sought "because the United States has failed to establish the redressability prerequisite for Article III standing."

"More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/