The Department of Justice on Friday added a request that the judge separate all ballots showing votes for the second Dan Sullivan until it can be determined whether voters were fooled into wasting their votes for a spoiler candidate.
It's the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government's list.
President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of the Democratic candidate running for Senate in Alaska on Wednesday after revelations that her campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting a candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.
One of them is a Republican senator and ally of the president. The other is a retired schoolteacher whom Republicans accuse of being a Democratic plant to siphon away votes.
The lawsuit centers on one of the president's longstanding complaints in the Senate race — the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan who Republicans fear could siphon away votes from the incumbent in what's likely to be a photo-finish contest with Democrat Mary Peltola.