What is ballot-stacking and is it illegal? Alaska Senate race controversy, explained

In an investigation published Oct. 28, The New York Times reported that staffers for Alaska Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola spent months recruiting candidates named Dan Sullivan in order to peel votes from incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. 

Political parties often employ the election tactic, referred to as “ballot-stacking,” to confuse voters by deliberately recruiting additional candidates to run with the goal of drawing votes away from an opponent.

In Alaska, a candidate named Dan J. Sullivan, whom a Democratic operative associated with Peltola’s team allegedly recruited, is on the ballot, alongside Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan. President Donald Trump has called Peltola’s alleged actions a “fraud on the American public.”  Additionally, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to block or delay the election certification if the incumbent were to lose the senate race. 

Snopes readers asked us to look into the legality of ballot-stacking as an election tactic, as well as the veracity of the claim that Peltola’s staffers tried to recruit multiple Dan Sullivans to join the Senate race. Readers also wanted to know whether the DOJ could block the election from being certified if the Republican candidate lost.

Below we break down everything we know about the controversy and ballot-stacking during elections:

Did Peltola’s team carry out ballot-stacking?

The New York Times spoke to Elisa Rios, a former staffer and campaign manager for Peltola who was recently fired. Rios claimed top campaign aides instructed her to find as many people named “Dan Sullivan” as they could in Alaska and convince them to run for Senate, causing confusion among voters and possibly costing the incumbent senator crucial votes. 

The Times reported that it reviewed text messages and conducted numerous interviews with Rios and 12 people who participated in the alleged plan, knew about the plan or were would-be candidates. Shortly before the story was published, Rios attempted to retract her statements to the Times, the newspaper reported. She was planning to file a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the Peltola campaign. The Times kept her statements in the story. 

The Peltola campaign denied being involved in Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy. Jim Lottsfeldt, a local political consultant aligned with super PACs supporting Peltola, said Rios was a source of “disgruntled, anti-Mary Peltola stuff that I think is often not true.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also denied participating in such a project, but the Times said it had reviewed texts and documents showing otherwise. 

Rios claimed a Democrat operative named Jerid Kurtz — who reportedly posed as a man named “Zane” and approached people to attempt to convince them to run in or to drop out of the race — made contact with Dan J. Sullivan and described him as amenable to running if it would help Peltola.  Kurtz is an Ohio native, according to the Times, and would reach out to people under the alias with an email that included the word “buckeye.” Ohio is known as the Buckeye State.  

Rios also alleged that Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney for the Peltola campaign, was involved in efforts to create a “right-wing state party” that could challenge the incumbent Republican senator. 

We have no reason to doubt the veracity of the Times’ reporting. However, because we were unable to view the evidence or obtain additional confirmation from people involved, we cannot confirm its claims as of this writing.

Snopes reached out to an individual we believe to be Rios via Facebook and will update this story if we receive a response We have also reached out to Lopez but did not receive a response by the time of publication. We were unable to contact Kurtz, who has removed his social media pages. 

Additionally, we contacted Peltola’s campaign to learn more and will update this story accordingly. 

Ultimately, Dan J. Sullivan is allowed to run in the Senate election,

Who is Dan J. Sullivan and is he allowed to run?

Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, lives in the small fishing community of Petersburg, according to the Times. He is contesting the Nov. 3 senate election with no party affiliation, though he initially registered to run as a Republican. Sullivan has maintained publicly that he entered the Senate race of his own volition, though Rios contended that he was contacted by Kurtz and expressed a desire to help Peltola’s campaign.

We reached out to Sullivan to learn more about the motivations behind his candidacy. We will update this story if we receive a response. 

As of June 26, Sullivan is legally permitted to run in the election — something that the Peltola campaign and its affiliates celebrated, according to the Times’ report — though the election board initially attempted to block him. 

On June 15, the Alaska Division of Elections announced that Sullivan was ineligible to participate and would be removed from the ballot because his filing was “for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters.” Carol Beecher, the elections division director, wrote in a letter (emphasis ours):

You requested to access the ballot under the name “Dan Sullivan” even though it appears from Division records that you have never registered to vote or sought ballot access under this name. Our records indicate that you are registered to vote under the name “Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.” That you chose the occasion of your declaration of candidacy for U.S. Senate to seek ballot access under a name you have not used in your interactions with the Division suggests—and in combination with the additional facts I outline in this letter leads me to conclude—that you are seeking to confuse yourself with another candidate in the race, the incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, rather than distinguish yourself from him. Indeed, you yourself appeared to be confused when you initially emailed the Division asking to be listed on the ballot as “Dan S. Sullivan.” “S” is Senator Sullivan’s middle initial, not yours.

She added, in a likely reference to Kurtz: 

A political consultant you have admitted is working with your campaign is a known longtime supporter of Democratic candidates including the primary Democratic challenger to Senator Sullivan. This consultant’s work on your behalf is, in isolation, innocuous. Alongside the other facts I have catalogued in this letter, however, it suggests a determined effort and a deliberate attempt to use the similarity of your name to confuse Alaska voters in the upcoming primary election. 

Upon appeal, on June 26, the Alaska Supreme Court permitted Sullivan to appear on the ballot, though it did not give its reasoning. Alaskan Republican officials made the decision about how Sullivan was to appear on the ballot, and determined he would be listed without a party affiliation while the incumbent senator would be listed as a Republican. Alaskan voters can vote for both men if they are confused between the two, as the election employs a ranked-choice system. 

Is ballot-stacking illegal?

Generally, ballot-stacking as an election tactic is not illegal. In a Fox News interview, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the practice fraud. When asked whether the practice was illegal, Blanche said “it should be” but stopped short of saying it actually was.

The Times investigation also noted that “ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal.” 

For example, in 2024, according to an Alaska News Source report, a registered Democrat named Eric Hafner ran for Alaska’s U.S. House seat, even though he was incarcerated in a federal prison in New York and did not even live in Alaska. (Hafner had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for making death threats to judges, police officers and others.)

The Alaska Beacon noted that while the Democratic Party sued to keep Hafner off the ballot, the Republican Party sought to keep him on it. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in Hafner’s favor and the Republican candidate defeated Peltola for the House seat. Hafner’s campaign advertising was also reportedly backed by a Republican campaign group.

Also in 2024, a pro-Peltola PAC ran ads for a third-party candidate after Democratic strategists saw the tactic as favorable to Peltola.

John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, told Snopes over the phone that there is no specific law against adding similar-sounding names to ballots as an election tactic. However, there have been cases where people were prosecuted on grounds of deceiving voters, Fortier said, like cases filed against groups accused of making deceptive “robocalls” to voters to spread false information about election dates.

For example, in 2011, a campaign manager for Republican former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to violate election laws and two counts of election fraud. He orchestrated a scheme of robocalls targeting Black Democratic voters by informing them that Democratic Gov. Martin O’ Malley had already won the election as of 6 p.m. on Election Day 2010, and thus attempted to deter them from going to the polls.

We also found a 2020 case in Florida where a local Republican Party chairman was found guilty of a misdemeanor campaign finance violation through a scheme in which he planned to use a so-called ghost candidate to siphon votes away from the Republican candidates’ competitor.

Can DOJ delay or block election certification process?

On Oct. 22, the DOJ filed a complaint against the state of Alaska, Beecher, the state election board and the state ballot counting review board, saying the sole purpose of Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy was to “benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.” The lawsuit sought to delay or block Alaska from certifying its election results if the Republican candidate lost. 

Fortier told Snopes that the DOJ complaint did not have a “real leg to stand on [as] the grounds were not really clear.” He said, generally speaking, it is uncommon for election certification to be delayed or overturned, and even more uncommon for federal actions to be imposed on a state’s election. The DOJ complaint appeared to be geared towards “broadly raising the issue [of ballot-stacking] and putting it back into people’s minds,” he added.

The U.S. Constitution allows states to control their own elections, so the DOJ lawsuit may have little merit in the long run. Additionally, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means it could take weeks to finalize a result.

The state argued thst the DOJ lawsuit had “no legal basis,” adding that “delaying certification of Alaska’s election results—but only if a particular candidate does not win—would interfere with state election administration and threaten election integrity.” The state also noted that the ballots now clearly distinguish the two candidates, who are now listed as “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” with no party affiliation, while the incumbent is listed as “Dan S. Sullivan.”

The state’s response said:

If any voter remains confused, Alaska law allows voters to receive assistance from others. And if the voter is still uncertain, he can rank both Sullivans as his first and second choices under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system so that his vote will count for either Sullivan over any other candidate.

Will it affect the election?

Some Alaskans say such political tactics will do little to change their views. An Alaska Public Media report featured interviews with Alaskans on both sides of the aisle. One registered Republican said he was still voting for Peltola and that Rios’ claims were likely because she was a disgruntled former employee.

Another voter said, “Voters are intelligent and can figure out how to rank and can figure out which Dan Sullivan is their person.” 

Some Petersburg locals also described Dan J. Sullivan as a man of “high character” and did not believe the Times’ account of him working with Democrats behind the scenes. 

In sum …

While The New York Times’ reporting indicates Democrats in Alaska may have engaged in political skullduggery, ballot-stacking appears to be a common tactic employed many times by both sides over the years with minor repercussions. Even the U.S. attorney general said such a practice “should be” illegal but did not assert it was. 

As of this writing, both Sullivans are on the ballot for the Nov. 3 Senate election in Alaska.

Sources