Alaska Judge Denies Peltola Ballot Data Request as Key Midterm Races Remain Unsettled

More than a week after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, a handful of contests remain unsettled, and none is drawing more attention than Alaska's U.S. Senate race. On Wednesday, Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews denied a request from Democrat Mary Peltola's campaign for a list of voters whose absentee ballots had been rejected, along with the reasons, The Associated Press reported. Alaska's is the only U.S. Senate race still too early to call.

Peltola's campaign sued state election officials last Friday, saying it wanted to make sure every qualified voter's ballot is counted. At a Tuesday hearing, campaign attorney Abha Khanna said the campaign was not trying to disrupt the count and described the absentee review process as going smoothly. She argued the information is public and that observers can already see it at absentee review boards, but said the campaign wanted it in one place.

State attorneys countered that releasing the data would violate voter privacy and that building such a list from the voter database is a special electronic product that, under state law, cannot take priority over the agency's core work. Michaela Thompson, who oversees the absentee review boards, said in an affidavit that observer reports include home addresses voters want kept private, and that the aging database cannot screen out confidential addresses without a vendor building a custom report.

Matthews agreed that, in theory, the records could be redacted and released, but he ruled the Division of Elections does not have to produce them now, noting staff are working long hours on deadlines tied to running the election. "The timing of the Campaign's request could simply not be worse," he wrote.

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan's campaign entered the fight on Monday, filing a motion to intervene in the lawsuit and arguing that it asked election officials to set aside state law, Fox News reported. Sullivan spokesman Nate Adams called the suit an attempt to "rig the system" and said it showed Peltola was not confident she could win on the merits. The Division of Elections had argued that individual voters had not yet been told their ballots were rejected and that handing the data to a campaign first would be improper.

The race has also been shadowed by a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan. Republicans accuse Democrats of a scheme to put him on the ballot to siphon votes from the senator, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy reopened an investigation after a New York Times report tied potential knowledge of the plan to Peltola's campaign, according to Fox. Fox has separately reported that Peltola insists she knew nothing about it. By the Alaska Watchman's math, Sullivan would still trail even if he had received every vote cast for his namesake.

In the Nov. 10 update, Peltola had 118,926 first-choice votes, or 48.97 percent, to Sullivan's 114,676, or 47.05 percent, a lead of 4,250 votes, the Alaska Watchman reported. Her lead grew from 2,517 after a release of more than 24,000 ballots that broke about 51.9 percent in her favor. The Epoch Times put the count at roughly 84 percent complete, with absentee ballots still arriving.

The two campaigns read the numbers differently. Sullivan's campaign said that with tens of thousands of ballots still to be counted there is a long way to go, thanked election workers and said it looks forward to a complete and accurate count. Peltola's campaign said "there is not a viable path to reelection for Senator Sullivan".

Because no candidate has topped 50 percent, ranked-choice tabulation may decide the race. Overseas absentee ballots can arrive through Nov. 18, which is also the Division of Elections' target for completing the ranked-choice tabulation. The target date for certification is Nov. 25, and while recounts are automatic only in a tie, a candidate may request one within five days of certification, Al Jazeera reported. Al Jazeera also reported that Democrats had already secured 54 seats in the incoming Senate, with Mississippi and Alaska outstanding at the time.

Alaska's governor race is also headed toward a ranked-choice finish if no one clears a majority. Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins led Republican Bernadette Wilson by about 50,661 votes as of early Wednesday, according to the Epoch Times, after leading 49.6 percent to 28.9 percent earlier in the count, according to Al Jazeera. In the state's at-large House seat, Republican Rep. Nick Begich is leading.

In eastern North Carolina, Republican Rep. Gregory Murphy, who has represented the 3rd Congressional District since 2019, conceded to Democrat Raymond Smith, an Army veteran and former state lawmaker, The Hill reported. Smith led by fewer than 300 votes as of Wednesday evening after provisional ballots erased Murphy's narrow election-night edge. Murphy had declared victory a week earlier, when about 6,000 provisional ballots across the district's nine counties were still uncounted, and Smith's campaign had begun raising money for a possible recount. Decision Desk HQ had not yet called the race.

Murphy congratulated Smith and said he was confident Smith "will serve the next two years with honor and integrity," while voicing disappointment at not continuing his work for the region. Smith said the win belonged to people who believed in something greater than themselves and pledged to work for every voter, whether or not they backed him.

North Carolina had four uncalled House races, the most of any state, each involving a Republican incumbent, in the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 10th districts. Candidates within 1 percent may request a recount by noon Eastern on Nov. 17, and the state certifies results on Nov. 24.

Several more House contests remain close. In Colorado's 4th District, challenger Eileen Laubacher led Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert by just over 3,000 votes, and in Tennessee's 4th, Democrat Victoria Broderick led Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais by about 285 votes, the Epoch Times reported. Tennessee holds recounts only through court challenges. In Minnesota's 1st District, Democrat Jake Johnson and Republican Brad Finstad were separated by about one-tenth of a percentage point as of Nov. 10; a publicly funded recount is available there if the margin is under 0.25 percent.

In Maine's 2nd District, former Republican Gov. Paul LePage held a slight lead over Democrat Matthew Dunlap as the race moved to ranked-choice counting. In South Carolina's 2nd, a recount is underway after Republican Rep. Joe Wilson led Democrat Zyon Khalifa by about 3,000 votes in the original count. California's 4th District will stay Democratic because both finalists are Democrats, while the 23rd remains open; counties must certify by Dec. 3 and the state by Dec. 11. Louisiana's 5th and 6th districts go to Dec. 12 runoffs, with state Reps. Pat Moore and Gabe Firment in the 5th and Chauna Banks and state Sen. Blake Miguez in the 6th.

In Kansas, Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher led Republican Senate President Ty Masterson by less than one percentage point in the governor's race. The close margin triggered a hand-count audit of selected ballots that must be completed before counties certify on Nov. 16. The Epoch Times reported Democrats will hold at least 28 governorships in 2027, or 30 if they win both Kansas and Alaska.

The outstanding races will not change control of Congress. Al Jazeera reported Democrats hold 255 of 435 House seats, their largest elected majority since 2008, and the Epoch Times noted that even a Republican sweep of the uncalled districts would not shift the balance of power.

The calendar now drives the story: Kansas county certification on Nov. 16, North Carolina recount requests on Nov. 17, Alaska's overseas ballot deadline and ranked-choice tabulation on Nov. 18, North Carolina certification on Nov. 24, Alaska certification on Nov. 25, California county certification on Dec. 3 and state certification on Dec. 11, and Louisiana's runoffs on Dec. 12. In Alaska especially, both campaigns say they want every lawful ballot counted, and Wednesday's ruling leaves election workers to finish that job on the state's schedule.