Alaska Judge Denies Peltola Request for Rejected Absentee Ballot Data

The ruling narrows the Peltola campaign's legal options as vote counting continues in a race where the margin remains unresolved.

An Alaska Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola's request to compel state election officials to provide data on rejected absentee ballots cast in her contest against incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), according to a report by the Washington Examiner.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled that the Peltola campaign's request for the rejected ballot information was "not reasonable," the Washington Examiner reported. The ruling came as vote counting in the race remained ongoing as of November 12, 2026, with no final margin publicly certified.

The Peltola campaign had filed a lawsuit targeting the Alaska Division of Elections and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees state elections, according to the Washington Examiner report. The specific data fields sought in the campaign's request were not fully detailed in publicly available reporting as of publication time. The full text of the complaint would appear in Alaska Superior Court case filings and would specify the exact categories of ballot data the campaign sought.

Peltola, a Democrat, served as Alaska's sole U.S. House representative beginning in 2022 after winning a special election following the death of Rep. Don Young. She entered the 2026 Senate race as a challenger to Sullivan, who has held the seat since January 2015, according to the Senate's official congressional record.

Sullivan was first elected to the Senate in 2014 and re-elected in 2020, according to the Senate's official biography page. His 2020 race against Democrat Al Gross was also closely watched, though Sullivan won that contest by approximately 54 percent to 39 percent, according to certified Alaska Division of Elections results.

Absentee ballot rejection disputes have become a recurring feature of post-election litigation in several states. Courts have generally distinguished between campaigns seeking data for public interest purposes and requests that require election offices to produce records outside of standard statutory procedures. Judge Matthews' characterization of the request as "not reasonable" reflects the legal standard applied in this instance, though the specific statutory or procedural basis for the ruling was not detailed in available reporting as of publication time.

Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system, adopted by voters via Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, which the state legislature voted to repeal in 2024. The status of that repeal as applied to the 2026 election cycle was a matter of state law and would be reflected in Alaska Division of Elections administrative guidance. Whether ranked-choice tabulation affected the ballot rejection question before the court is unknown based on available source material.

The Peltola campaign did not issue a statement available in public reporting as of this article's publication. It is unknown whether the campaign intends to appeal Judge Matthews' ruling or pursue alternative legal avenues. An appeal would be filed with the Alaska Court of Appeals and would become part of the public court record upon submission.

Sullivan's campaign also had not issued a public statement on the ruling that was available in public reporting as of publication time.

Several facts remain unknown: the total number of rejected absentee ballots at issue, the current vote margin between the two candidates, and the precise legal theory the Peltola campaign advanced in its complaint. The Alaska Division of Elections publishes vote count updates on its official website, and the full court record, including the complaint and the judge's written order, would be available through the Alaska Court System's online case search portal, CourtView.