Alaska’s voting system cancels out President Donald Trump’s continued calls for "decoy Dan" votes to be transferred to Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, experts say. The state’s ranked-choice election structure already accounts for those votes and is designed to limit partisan gaming, politics professors told Newsweek. With 74 percent of the votes counted as of Friday morning, Democrat Mary Peltola held a narrow lead over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, 48.17 percent to 47.88 percent.
Heikes, who ran as a Republican, had 2.27 percent of the vote, and "decoy" Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had 1.68 percent of the vote. The latter was ultimately without party affiliation after being accused of being a fake candidate recruited by Democrats to siphon votes away from the incumbent.
Peltola’s small advantage could either strengthen or vanish in the coming days, as more votes are expected to come in. Alaska will accept ballots from overseas voters up to November 18, when it will publish the results of the race. The delay in results is mainly due to the ranked-choice system, which was approved by a majority of voters in a statewide referendum in 2020 by a narrow margin of about 4,000 ballots.
Through the same ballot, voters approved to switch to one open primary instead of two primaries held by each political party, with the understanding that the top four candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will then proceed to the general election. It is this same system, which is only used in another state, Maine, that has come under fire by the Trump administration in recent weeks. In a post on Truth Social last month, Trump called the ranked-choice voting system "corrupt," saying it "shouldn’t be allowed in our country." On Thursday, he wrote on the social media platform: "The vote totals for the Fake Dan Sullivan, plus the other ‘slug’ that the Dems put on the Ballot, should be immediately given to the REAL Dan Sullivan, and the Election is over—He easily wins.
There is no other fair solution!" Trump had also launched a failed lawsuit aimed at preventing certification of the result if the Senator lost because of "decoy Dan's" votes. But experts disagree with Trump because they do not think there is any problem with the ranked-choice voting system in the first place. "I think Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system largely, if not completely, obviates the problem" of the outcome of the race changing because of the presence of Sullivan Jr. or Heikes on the ballot, Professor Mark Brown, of Capital University School of Law, told Newsweek.
"Sullivan Jr. will be eliminated and his votes transferred. So there is little possibility, if any, his presence and receipt of votes could change the outcome," he added. On November 3, Alaska voters ranked the Senate candidates by preference.
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