Alaska Judge Denies Peltola Campaign Request for Rejected Absentee Ballot List

An Alaska Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that a request by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola's campaign for a list of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected was unreasonable, given the timing. Judge Thomas Matthews wrote that the Division of Elections is busy processing general election ballots and lacks the capacity to generate the report from its voter registration database. Peltola's attorneys sued last Friday for the list and the reasons for each rejection, saying they wanted all qualified voters' ballots counted. State attorneys argued that disclosure would violate voter privacy and that producing the list would be an electronic product that cannot take priority over the agency's main duties. Counting continues in the ranked vote race between Peltola and two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the only Senate contest in the country still uncalled. Overseas ballots are accepted through Nov. 18, also the target date for ranked vote tabulations if no one wins over 50% of first-choice votes. Tuesday's totals showed Peltola ahead by 4,250 votes with an estimated 84% counted; a later count Wednesday night trimmed her lead.

Left-leaning HuffPost (carrying AP) and The Washington Post lead with the ruling itself, stressing the election-office time crunch, the Nov. 18 deadlines and the state's privacy and workload arguments, along with the campaign's stated aim of protecting valid ballots. Right-leaning Fox News also leads with the ruling but frames it as Peltola losing in court and then losing part of her lead, quoting the judge's remark that the timing could not be worse, featuring Gov. Mike Dunleavy and linking a report on spoiler candidates. The Daily Wire focuses on vote totals and the "Decoy Dan" controversy, citing 4,027 votes for Dan J. Sullivan and 5,318 for Gerald Heikes. Both sides report the ruling and the close count; they differ in whether the focus is procedure or the campaign's political troubles. Reuters and NewsNation largely match the left's account.