Name one Alaska voter who is confused by the two Dan Sullivans

Donald Trump said Mary Peltola should face criminal prosecution and be removed from the ballot, which is election interference from the highest office in the land.

Taking the cue from his leader, Gov. Mike Dunleavy immediately called for a criminal investigation, which is election interference from the highest office in the state.

Trump and Dunleavy have no respect for Alaska voters and are illegally trying to prevent Peltola from beating Sen. Dan Sullivan.

This is textbook cheating by the president and the governor, cheered on by Sen. Dan Sullivan.

“The Justice Department has begun issuing dozens of subpoenas as part of its nascent criminal investigation into the effort by operatives aligned with Mary Peltola’s campaign to enlist a decoy candidate to confuse supporters of Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry,” The New York Times reported Thursday.

It’s all about influencing the election.

The criminal investigations that Trump and Dunleavy have demanded are an attempt to sway voters with political posturing and deny Alaskans the chance to choose a senator without government misconduct. They are also setting the stage for a post-election court case to challenge the results.

There is no legal reason for a criminal investigation of Peltola. There is only a political reason, which is to help Sullivan stay in the U.S. Senate.

As to their ranting and raving about voter confusion, there is no voter confusion.

I would like to find one voter in Alaska who is confused by the two Dan Sullivans and is unable to tell which is which on the ballot.

Trump says that a lot of people in Alaska are too dumb to know what the word incumbent means. The Republican Party propagandist has taken up the cause by whining that the word incumbent is not translated into all the Native languages that appear on the ballot.

Trump, Sullivan and the Republican Party are laying f the groundwork to claim election fraud if Peltola wins.

This confusion claim is all nonsense, as the state election lawyers have made clear in Trump’s frivolous lawsuit.

“To ensure that the appearance of the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot would not confuse voters, the Division designed the ballot to distinguish them as much as possible,” the state lawyers told the federal court.

The senator is clearly identified as the Sullivan who is now a U.S. Senator.

“The results of the primary election suggest that Alaska voters had no trouble identifying the senator when they wished to vote for him,” the state said.

But Dunleavy, clearly looking for more favors with Trump, went on Fox News to claim that Daniel J. Sullivan “should not be on the ballot.” He is on the ballot because the Alaska Supreme Court approved his candidacy. The court said there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution or the Alaska Constitution that requires “good faith candidates,” the standard created by the Dunleavy administration.

Dunleavy claimed the Alaska Supreme Court would probably issue a different ruling in light of the New York Times reporting. Since there is no evidence of a crime, I suspect Dunleavy is wrong.

Asked if he agreed with Trump that Peltola should be removed from the ballot, Dunleavy declined to answer.

Dunleavy did claiomi that some number of the 60,000 Alaskans who have already voted “thought they were voting for the incumbent,” but were not. Perhaps these are voters who don’t know the meaning of incumbent. Dunleavy said he wants to find out how many voters mistakenly voted for the wrong Sullivan.

This is political babble. There is no way doing what he wants because ballots are secret and not tracked that way. The best Trump, Dunleavy and Sullivan will be able to do is come up with people who had no idea which Sullivan they were voting for, but somehow learned after the fact that they voted for the wrong guy.

Trump’s lawyers now claim that because the election “may be impacted by voter confusion,” the state should be banned from certifying the election if Sullivan loses in a close election.

This is how the Trump Department of Justice defines confusion: “An election result may be impacted by voter confusion if: (1) Senator Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan and Alaska’s rank-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election.”

The legal reasoning in third rate and the political motives are on full display.

The only confusion here is the baseless legal claims Stanley E. Woodward Jr. in Washington and E. Bryan Wilson in Anchorage signed to carry out Trump’s political order.

Not a single person has come forward to claim that the August primary ballot with the two Sullivans was so confusing that ballots were cast for the wrong Sullivan. The general election ballot, with only four names, is much simpler.

Trump, Sullivan and Dunleavy will try to find voters—the dumbest of the dumb—who will claim that they voted for the wrong Sullivan by mistake because they did not read the ballot.

This is a job for Ali G. or Borat.

Or Kimberley A. Strassel, the Wasilla culture warrior for the Wall Street Journal, who sees Sullivan confusion spreading across the land.

Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr. “threatens to deny Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan re-election,” Strassel has once again cried in the WSJ.

She keeps making this claim while failing to explain that any ordinary fool can tell which is which.

But the Alaska ballot is so confusing, Strassel sighs, that Alaskans don’t know who they are voting for.

“I’ve spoken to numerous supporters of the senator who are deeply confused,” says Strassel.

Deeply confused by what? The price of gas? That they will vote for the first Sullivan on the ballot because they are too stupid to look at the next line? That they don’t know what incumbent means?

All of these imaginary voters that Strassel claims to have talked to are in the running to be crowned the Alaska Dumbbell of the Year, which would put them near the top of the national standings.

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No one could possibly confuse the Dan Sullivans.

Dermot Cole78 Comments