Alaska Judge Denies Peltola Campaign Access to Rejected Absentee Ballot Records

Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled on Nov. 11 against Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola's request for records identifying absentee ballots the state rejected, and the reasons. Her campaign sued last week for the list and for a report given to election observers. In a 17-page decision, Matthews said the two versions of that report are not public records, contain confidential and preliminary information, and cannot be kept by observers. He said the Division of Elections is still counting ballots and lacks the capacity to generate the report, so the request was not reasonable now. He wrote that the timing could not be worse. Peltola leads Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in the last uncalled Senate race. As of Thursday she had 121,487 votes to his 117,512, a 1.6-point lead, according to the Associated Press. She lost part of that lead in a Wednesday-night ballot drop. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and a second candidate named Dan Sullivan is also on the ballot.

The Washington Post, the only left-leaning outlet here, leads with the ruling and describes the campaign's request as one for a list of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected in a tight race. Its excerpt gives no vote totals or judge quotes. The Daily Signal and Fox News also lead with the court loss but pair it with Peltola's narrow lead. The Daily Signal gives the AP vote counts. Fox adds Matthews' quoted reasoning, the lead she lost, Gov. Mike Dunleavy on the legal fights, and a link to a report that her campaign and Democrats backed spoiler candidates. All three agree on the outcome. They differ in how much numerical and legal detail they give and in what they set beside the ruling. ZeroHedge closely tracks the ruling's detail, while Democracy Now! instead covers ranked-choice voting, with FairVote adviser Rob Richie calling Peltola heavily favored.