Conceding an election is supposed to be an act of respect for voters who made a free and informed choice. So what happens when one campaign allegedly went out of its way to deceive voters? Election shenanigans are nothing new, of course. We’ve seen all kinds of things pulled, and many succeed. Spoiler candidates in particular are a common tactic, but actively recruiting someone with the same name as your opponent takes it to a whole other level. Mary Peltola will have to answer for that soon enough, but the election is on Tuesday. What happens if she wins?
That's the question hanging over Alaska's Senate race, and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has already made up his mind. Asked on CNN's State of the Union Sunday what he would do if Peltola beats him on Tuesday, Sullivan gave a straight answer. "I'm going to accept the election results," he said.
It's a gracious pledge. It's also a strange one, given what he's up against.
Peltola campaign staffers and DSCC staffers reportedly recruited Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a former Forest Service employee, in a ranked-choice contest. He originally registered as a Republican and used campaign branding similar to the incumbent senator’s. The Division of Elections rightfully tossed him off the ballot, but the Alaska Supreme Court reinstated him; the division then recommended listing him as not affiliated with a party.
Though the Peltola campaign’s hand in all this was long suspected, The New York Times revealed last week that its own investigation found Peltola’s campaign did recruit the fake Dan Sullivan to confuse voters and siphon votes from the real Dan Sullivan. Former campaign manager Elisa Rios told the paper that Peltola knew about the effort but didn't participate directly. A former staffer got marching orders to "find as many people named Dan Sullivan as you can." The Department of Justice is now investigating.
Asked whether the alleged scheme was legal, Sullivan said he would "let the lawyers figure that out." He didn't stop there. "I think there's some good arguments on both sides," he added.
"The key thing I'm focused on is looking at Peltola and her team, and the Democrats in [Washington,] D.C., and how they treat Alaskans with disdain," Sullivan said. "Their first order of business, as I said, is: 'How can we trick people in Alaska so they can throw the vote in a way that's certainly deceitful, if not illegal, towards Peltola?'"
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He returned to the decoy effort a moment later. "This is treating the people of my state with utter disrespect and disdain, and I don't think it's worthy of a U.S. senator or a U.S. Senate candidate," he continued.
Here’s how I see things.
If Peltola wins, the legitimacy of her victory comes down to simple math. Ranked-choice voting lets ballots move to a voter's next choice, but a confused voter who ranks "Decoy Dan" first and stops there has effectively thrown away a vote meant for the real senator. If Peltola's margin of victory is smaller than the number of votes "Decoy Dan" collects, nobody can say with confidence that Alaskans actually chose her.
In that scenario, Sullivan shouldn't concede.
Honestly, I'm sick of Democrats pulling shenanigans and getting away with it. Democrats have routinely disputed the results of presidential elections they lost. They did in 2000, 2004, and 2016. Yet when Democrats actually try to steal an election, Republicans are supposed to smile, concede, and move on?
I don't think so.
Sullivan is probably saying what he needs to say, and hopefully the fake Sullivan won't thwart his victory. But no matter what happens Tuesday, Peltola and anyone who was involved in this scheme have to pay a price.
Accepting election results is a promise both sides make on the assumption that the contest was honest. I’m sorry, but a candidate who poisons the election by deliberately deceiving the voters forfeits any right to demand that courtesy from her opponent. And if the GOP keeps answering these tricks with polite concessions, well, it only teaches Democrats that cheating works.
