Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola lost a legal effort to obtain records identifying rejected absentee ballots in Alaska's uncalled midterm Senate race, while her narrow lead over incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan decreased in the latest tally. Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled against the Peltola campaign's request, stating that the demand was not reasonable while election officials are actively processing votes.
The ruling comes as the state Division of Elections continues to count ballots from the 2026 general election. With approximately 86% of the expected vote counted, the race remains too close to call, with neither candidate holding a majority. The outcome may ultimately depend on ranked-choice voting tabulations, which are scheduled to begin after absentee counting concludes around Nov. 18.
What the Left Is Saying
The Peltola campaign argued that access to the rejected ballot records would centralize transparency already available to observers in a decentralized manner. Campaign attorney Abha Kelly stated that the process was "going incredibly smoothly" and emphasized that the campaign was not seeking confidential data or attempting to disrupt the vote count.
Kelly contended that the request was a reasonable measure to ensure clarity in a high-stakes election. The campaign's position relies on the public's interest in understanding why specific absentee ballots were flagged for rejection, arguing that such information is essential for a transparent electoral process.
What the Right Is Saying
State attorneys opposed the request, citing voter privacy interests and the administrative burden on election officials. Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh argued that voters have a privacy interest in not being publicly exposed as having made errors on their ballots. "Voters have a privacy interest in that because people who want to vote absentee presumably don’t want to mess it up and don’t want to be publicly exposed as having messed that up," Paton-Walsh said.
The Sullivan campaign was allowed to intervene in the lawsuit, supporting the state's position. The defense argued that producing a customized report during peak election work would impose a significant burden on the Division of Elections, which is currently focused on processing the general election ballots.
What the Numbers Show
Judge Matthews sided with the Alaska Division of Elections, finding that the agency "simply lacks the capacity to generate the report" from the voter registration database. In his written order, Matthews noted, "Even if the request were otherwise considered reasonable outside the peak election time of year, it is simply not reasonable nor required right now," adding that "the timing of the Campaign’s request could simply not be worse."
As of the latest count, Peltola holds 121,487 first-choice votes (48.9%) compared to Sullivan's 117,512 votes (47.3%), a lead of 3,975 votes. More than 248,000 ballots have been tallied. Third-place candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. has 4,100 votes, and Gerald Heikes has 5,426 votes. These third- and fourth-place totals exceed the current margin between the top two candidates, meaning their supporters' second-choice preferences could prove decisive in the ranked-choice tabulation.
The Bottom Line
The legal defeat for the Peltola campaign removes a tool for immediate scrutiny of rejected ballots, shifting focus to the final tally and the subsequent ranked-choice process. Certification of the election results is expected on Nov. 25. Additionally, a separate measure to repeal Alaska's ranked-choice voting system is currently failing at 52.5% to 47.5%, a margin that remains too close to call more than a week after Election Day. The final outcome of the Senate race will likely depend on the redistribution of votes from eliminated candidates under the state's ranked-choice voting rules.