Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy admits his own state’s voting system is “very confusing,” and warned that the close race between Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola and incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan will not be determined for days, if not weeks.
“It’s very close, the numbers,” Dunleavy told WABC Radio’s “The Cats Roundtable” on Sunday, noting key dates for ballot dumps will be Friday, Nov. 13, and Wednesday, Nov. 18, when “another big batch of votes will come in.”
“It’s a slow system up here in Alaska,” he admitted, acknowledging that “we’ve got quite an issue up here.”
“A big batch of votes will come and that’ll really determine, you know, who’s going to have the lead.”
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Peltola, currently with 48.17% support, leads by just 637 votes in Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system that has not dropped any new vote tallies for days. Election Day was Tuesday, Nov. 3, and if no candidate gets 50% support as the No. 1 choice by Nov. 25, the results go to rounds of ranked-choice candidates on the second and third choices.
“It is very confusing,” Dunleavy said. “That was also on the ballot, to actually repeal that voting scheme that was put in place here just a couple years ago, and so it’s confusing, 100%.”
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“No” votes against repealing ranked-choice voting lead very narrowly at 51.85%. That decision also remains too close to call a week after the polls closed.
“We’re still in the process of bringing in votes and counting votes,” Dunleavy said. “And we are in the midst of investigations as to determine if there was any wrongdoing, especially anything that might resemble perjury or, you know, a misrepresentation of individual’s intent on how they wanted their candidacy to be placed on the ballot.”
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Dunleavy denounced what he called the “Decoy Dan” scheme that had Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot in an alleged plot to siphon votes from the Republican incumbent.
The governor claimed the other Sullivan even allegedly tried to get on the general election ballot as Daniel S. Sullivan, using the middle initial of the incumbent instead of his own.
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“That kind of opened our eyes and we began an investigation back there, the Division of Elections did, to determine if this was a legitimate candidacy, and the Division of Elections at that time found that was not and did not put him on the ballot,” Dunleavy said. “Then there was a court case and the Supreme Court in the end ruled against the Division of Elections in Alaska, and they must go on the ballot.”
After a New York Times report tied potential knowledge of the “Decoy Dan” scheme on behalf of Peltola’s campaign, Dunleavy reopened the investigation of wrongdoing.
“When The New York Times article came out, you know, we already knew a lot of what was happening there, but there was more revelations of that article,” he said. “As a result of that, we began another investigation up here in Alaska, and the Department of Justice did the same, so you have this investigation going on right in the middle of an election.”