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A judge ruled on Friday that another man running as a Republican, who shares the same name as Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, is eligible to run against him in the August primary in Alaska.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews’ ruling overturns a decision made by Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher earlier this month to disqualify the second Sullivan from the ballot.
Matthews on Friday ruled that Beecher didn’t follow the Constitution, Alaska law or the division’s own regulations when deciding to disqualify Sullivan.
“Instead, the decision was based upon a new, previously unstated, ‘good faith’ criteria,” the judge wrote.
In her determination, Beecher said that Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher who recently changed his party affiliation to the GOP, did not launch his campaign “in good faith,” and sought to “confuse or mislead” voters at the ballot box.
The Republican senator is seeking a third term in the state.
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Democrats are hoping that former Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, whom Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., helped recruit into the race, will unseat him in November.
Alaska is one of several states that are expected to be competitive as both parties vie for control of the Senate.
The Division of Elections told The Associated Press on Saturday that it plans to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
The deadline for a final ruling is Tuesday so that ballots for the Aug. 18 primary can be printed on time, state attorneys have said.
The senator previously told Fox News Digital that he believes Dan J. Sullivan is a Democrat plant.
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“His primary purpose is not to win an election, it’s to confuse Alaskans and rig the vote for my opponent, the Democrat,” Sullivan said. “He’s not in it to win it. He’s in it to rig it.”
The name confusion could prove particularly consequential in Alaska given its ranked-choice voting system, where voters list candidates in order of preference.
If Dan J. Sullivan is allowed to stay on the primary ballot, both he and incumbent Dan S. Sullivan could advance to the general election in which the top four vote-getters will appear.
Dan J. Sullivan’s attorneys have argued that there are only three qualifications to run for the Senate in the Constitution: age, citizenship and residency.
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He also previously said that sharing a name with the senator gave him an “instant megaphone,” but he had grown frustrated with the lawmaker and had been considering his own run for some time.
The Division of Elections, however, argued that it’s not required to put him on the ballot and find a way to make it less confusing for voters.
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“The Constitution does not require States to place a sham candidate on the ballot and then attempt to mitigate the damage through design choices,” attorney Rachel Witty, of the Alaska Department of Law, and outside attorneys Christopher Murray and Michael Francisco wrote in court filings.
Attorneys for the challenger Sullivan argued that the Constitution lays out three exclusive qualifications for the Senate, addressing only age, citizenship and residency, and claimed Beecher didn’t have the right to kick him off the ballot.
Fox News’ Adam Pack, Alex Miller and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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