Alaska Judge Rejects Peltola Campaign’s Bid for Rejected-Ballot Data

An Alaska judge on 11 November rejected a request by Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign for a list identifying voters whose absentee ballots had been flagged for rejection and explaining why. The Associated Press reported that Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews considered the request unreasonable given the short timetable facing election officials as they count ballots in the state’s still-undecided Senate race. The ruling is a decision about access to preliminary election records, not a finding that the state counted every ballot correctly or that any specific voter was unlawfully disenfranchised. It also does not decide who will win. The dispute exposes a practical tension in Alaska’s system: campaign observers can see parts of the review process under confidentiality rules, but voters and campaigns cannot retain the same detailed information while the count is under way.

A close race and a narrow records dispute

The case, Alaskans for Mary v. Dahlstrom, was filed in Anchorage Superior Court on 6 November. Peltola’s campaign had asked regional election offices on 27 October for the absentee register showing the accept-or-reject code for each returned ballot, or equivalent records identifying voters whose ballots had been rejected and the reasons. The campaign argued that access would help it check whether eligible ballots were being excluded. It did not ask the court to stop the count, and the complaint did not establish that a particular ballot had been wrongly rejected.

The state opposed the request. In a 6 November statement, the Alaska Department of Law said the records were preliminary, could change during review, and included names and home addresses. It said authorised observers could view certain daily records under confidentiality agreements but could not copy or retain them. The state also argued that the requested information was not a final record of rejected ballots and that producing it in the form sought could burden election workers during the count.

The Associated Press reported that the judge ruled on Wednesday that the campaign’s request was not reasonable in the circumstances. That description should not be inflated into a general ruling that all absentee-ballot rejection information is permanently confidential. The immediate dispute concerned a specific request for identifiable, preliminary records during an active count. The public reporting available on 12 November does not establish that the judge decided every possible future request for aggregate data, redacted records or final rejection statistics.

The timing matters because the Senate result is genuinely unresolved. Alaska’s official election page still labels the 3 November general-election results unofficial. The latest figures reported by the state and the Associated Press show Peltola with 118,926 first-choice votes and Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan with 114,676, a difference of 4,250. Peltola has about 49.0 per cent and Sullivan 47.2 per cent; neither has crossed the 50 per cent threshold needed to win outright under Alaska’s ranked-choice system. The state has scheduled the ranked-choice tabulation for 18 November, after the statutory period for eligible overseas ballots to arrive.

The US Senate (opens in a new tab) is the national prize in this contest, but the legal question before Matthews was not which party should control the chamber. It was whether a campaign could obtain individual-level preliminary records before the state review process was complete.

What Alaska’s review process actually does

Alaska does not treat every returned absentee envelope as a final ballot the moment it reaches an election office. Under AS 15.20.203, an absentee ballot counting board examines the envelope and determines whether the voter is qualified and whether the ballot has been properly cast. The statute lists grounds on which a ballot may not be counted, including failure to properly execute the required certificate or a missing or defective attestation where the law requires one. A decision to flag an envelope for further review is not the same as a final rejection.

The statute also separates the identifying envelope from the marked ballot. If an absentee ballot passes review, the envelope is opened, the secrecy sleeve containing the ballot is placed with other secrecy sleeves, and the ballots are mixed before counting. That process is intended to preserve the secrecy of each person’s vote. A list that links a named voter to an accept-or-reject code is not the same thing as a list of how that person voted, but it can still reveal sensitive personal information about their participation and the status of their ballot.

When a ballot is finally rejected, the law requires the director to send the voter a summary of the reason. For a general election, the notice must be mailed no later than 60 days after certification. The Division of Elections also provides a free system through which a voter can check whether a ballot was counted and, if it was not, why. The state’s process therefore gives voters information after the review and certification stages rather than giving campaigns a real-time copy of the working register.

This timing is the centre of the dispute. The campaign argued that public access during the count would allow scrutiny while there was still time to identify mistakes. The state argued that preliminary codes are not final decisions, can change as boards review envelopes, and are held in records containing protected addresses. Both positions raise legitimate administrative concerns. The public interest is not served by releasing inaccurate provisional classifications as if they were final. It is also not served if the public cannot later examine how many ballots were rejected, for what reasons and whether the rules were applied consistently.

The missing cure stage

The controversy has a second dimension that is more consequential for voters than the lawsuit itself: Alaska does not provide a general process for voters to correct common absentee-ballot defects before their ballots are rejected. A missing signature, a missing witness signature or a problem with the certificate can prevent a ballot from being counted even where the voter was eligible and intended to vote. The statutory review process identifies defects; it does not create a broad opportunity to repair them.

That gap was debated in the 2026 legislative session. Senate Bill 64, an elections package, included ballot-tracking and ballot-curing provisions. The Alaska Legislature passed the bill, but Governor Mike Dunleavy vetoed it on 29 April. On 4 May, lawmakers voted 38 to 22 to override the veto, short of the 40 votes required. The legislature’s own bill history records the veto as sustained. The proposed changes therefore did not become law for the November election.

This history matters because the campaign’s request for names and rejection reasons is not a substitute for a voter-cure system. If a ballot has a correctable defect, a campaign may want to identify the affected voter quickly. But a list alone does not authorise election officials to accept a ballot that state law says cannot be counted. Conversely, the absence of a cure process does not prove that any particular rejected ballot should have been counted. The question of whether Alaska should create a cure process is a policy choice for the legislature and governor; the question in this case was whether the campaign could obtain the requested records under existing law.

Transparency, privacy and administrative capacity

The state’s privacy argument is not merely a claim that election information should never be public. The records at issue reportedly included home addresses, and election officials said their existing database could not easily produce the requested report without those details. Campaign observers have controlled access to some daily information because they sign confidentiality agreements and cannot copy or retain the records. The campaign wanted a more durable and centralised view so it could compare decisions across regions.

There are less intrusive ways to meet part of that need. The state could publish daily aggregate figures for ballots provisionally accepted, held for official checking and finally rejected, provided the categories are clearly explained and small groups cannot be used to identify individual voters. It could publish final rejection totals by reason after certification, consistent with the statutory process. It could also explain how observers are selected, what they can inspect and how disputes about individual ballots are raised. These alternatives would not give campaigns a list of named voters, but they could improve public understanding without disclosing private addresses.

The court’s decision does not answer whether those alternatives are sufficient. Nor does it remove the legislature’s responsibility to decide whether the present system offers enough notice and correction rights. The state has a strong operational argument against forcing election workers to produce a new, complex report during a live count. But a system that relies on confidential, view-only records should be able to explain what information voters themselves receive, when they receive it and how the public can audit the final outcome.

Who gains and who pays

The immediate beneficiary of the ruling is the state election administration, which does not have to provide the requested identifiable working register to Peltola’s campaign during the count. Voters gain protection against the disclosure of names and home addresses in a preliminary record. Dan Sullivan’s campaign had supported the state’s position and asked that any disclosure ordered by the court be made equally available to all candidates, so it also avoids a situation in which one campaign receives a private informational advantage.

The costs are borne by voters who cannot independently inspect their own provisional rejection status through the requested list while the count is in progress, by campaigns that must rely on observers and aggregate information, and by taxpayers who pay for litigation and election administration. The absence of a cure process can make a small paperwork error consequential. The absence of a public, timely audit trail can make it harder to distinguish a genuine administrative mistake from a normal rejection under the law. Neither problem is proof of fraud; both are questions of institutional design.

The wider issue is democratic resilience (opens in a new tab). Confidence depends on the state applying the same standards to every voter and explaining the result in a way that can be checked. The capacity for peaceful transfer of power (opens in a new tab) is strengthened when close races are resolved through clear procedures, not by assuming that every challenge is either a partisan attack or evidence of wrongdoing.

What happens next

The next immediate milestone is the state’s continuing count and the planned ranked-choice tabulation on 18 November. The first-choice lead is not a certified result, and the second-choice preferences of voters whose first-choice candidates are eliminated may determine the final outcome. The state must complete its review of eligible absentee ballots before that tabulation can be meaningful. The campaign can still scrutinise the count through the lawful observer process and through public information that becomes available after the statutory stages.

The longer-term test is whether Alaska publishes sufficiently detailed final rejection statistics and whether lawmakers revisit ballot tracking and cure procedures. The official record already shows that SB 64 failed to become law after the veto override fell short. A future bill could separate privacy safeguards from the question of whether voters should have an opportunity to correct a defective envelope. It could also require more timely aggregate reporting without publishing individual addresses.

The ruling reported on 11 November does not decide the Senate contest, validate every rejection or establish that the campaign’s concerns were baseless. It decides that this request for preliminary, identifiable ballot data was not reasonable in the circumstances described to the court. The state still has to finish the count, explain the final numbers and provide voters with the notices required by law. Those are the tests that will determine whether the result is not only legally certified but publicly credible.

Sources

• Associated Press — Alaska judge rules Peltola campaign’s ballot-data request was not reasonable, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Department of Law — Response to lawsuit from Mary Peltola campaign, 6 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Division of Elections — 2026 General Election results and ranked-choice information (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Statutes — AS 15.20.203, procedure for district absentee ballot counting review (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Department of Law — Alaska Public Records Act and disclosure rules (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska State Legislature — SB 64 bill history, veto and 38–22 override vote (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Beacon — Peltola campaign sues over rejected absentee-voter information, 6 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)
• Alaska Public Media — Legislature fails to override veto of elections bill, 4 May 2026 (opens in a new tab)