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Tuesday, July 07, 2026

Silence [UPDATE: Ballots Printed And Overseas Ballots Sent]

[See update below]


The Division of Elections said it had a June 28 deadline to print primary ballots. 

But then they took Daniel J. Sullivan off the ballot in the US Senate race and were challenged in court and required to put him back on by the Superior and then Alaska Supreme Court. 

Then a sample ballot appeared on their website which left off Daniel J.'s political party and added "Incumbent" to Senator Dan S Sullivan's name on the ballot.  (Honorifics are not allowed and someone checked the last four elections and reported that no one had 'incumbent' by their name.)

Since then there's been almost complete silence.  

  • Were the ballots printed?  If so, what do they look like?
  • Did Daniel J. file any sort of legal complaint?  
  • What do the judges think about all this?  They said they'd trust the professionalism of the Division of Elections, but that was clearly a mistake.  
The only word has been from NBC saying the US Department of Justice and the Alaska Attorney General's office are investigating a conspiracy around putting Daniel J. on the ballot. Because he was trying to confuse the public.  I can think of others they should investigate first on that charge.   

Do you think the Republicans are worried about losing the Senate?

It's July 7 already and no word.  Yes, the July 4 holiday took up some time.  In fact the Division of Elections office in Anchorage was closed Friday AND Monday.  




[UPDATE:  July 7, 2026:  I stopped by the Anchorage Division of Elections again today to drop off a voter registration form. (I'm a voter registrar.)  The door was locked.  Entry required me to call them.



When the door finally opened, I handed off the registration form and I had two questions. 

  1. Were the primary ballots printed?  The woman answered, "Yes and they were sent to overseas voters last week."  
  2. My follow up question was: what did the Senate ballot say? "The sample ballot is on our website."  Below is a copy of the sample ballot for District 1. (They show the ballots for each district to show that the order of the names is rotated for each district as required by law.)



As you can see, Daniel J. Sullivan has Jr. after his name and his party was left off.  Dan S. Sullivan got to have both Republican AND "Incumbent" listed.  


" (4) The director may not include on the ballot, as a part of a candidate's name, any honorary or assumed title or prefix but may include in the candidate's name any nickname or familiar form of a proper name of the candidate.
(5) The names of the candidates shall be placed in separate sections on the state general election ballot under the office designation to which they were nominated. If a candidate is registered as affiliated with a political party or political group, the party affiliation, if any, may be designated after the name of the candidate, upon request of the candidate. If a candidate has requested designation as nonpartisan or undeclared, that designation shall be placed after the name of the candidate. If a candidate is not registered as affiliated with a political party or political group and has not requested to be designated as nonpartisan or undeclared, the candidate shall be designated as undeclared."
Therefore, as I read this, placing "Incumbent" after the current Senator's name would seem to fall into the category of 'honorary or assumed title'.  I believe it was the Chief Justice who raised this in the Supreme Court hearing.  Sen. Dan's attorney brushed it off.

And Daniel J.'s political party - Republican- should have been printed under his name.  No matter how much the GOP argue that he only recently registered as a Republican, there is nothing that addresses when one registered, except it has to be done before you turn in the forms for candidacy.  

Is Daniel J.'s attorney working on this?  I don't know.  This is where we are today, as far as I can tell.  

[UPDATE:  I did email Daniel J.'s attorney and he responded that he can't comment at this time.]

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