The most shocking part of this story is not the vote count. It is the wall of silence the court built around the rejected ballots. Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola lost her legal bid to see who had their absentee votes thrown out. She also saw her lead shrink on Wednesday night. This is the money and the mechanism behind the curtain. The mainstream media skips these details. They tell you the race is close. They do not tell you why the records are hidden.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews made the call on Wednesday. He sided with the Alaska Division of Elections. He said the request for records was simply not reasonable. The judge noted the agency is busy processing ballots. He said they lack the capacity to generate the report right now. The timing of the request could not have been worse, he wrote. This is a bureaucratic shield. It protects the process from scrutiny while the work is happening. It leaves voters in the dark about errors that might be fixable.
Peltola’s campaign sued last week. They wanted to know which ballots were flagged and why. Their attorney Abha Kelly told the court the process was going smoothly. She said they did not want confidential data. They wanted transparency that observers already see in pieces. State attorneys argued against this release. They cited voter privacy interests. Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh said people do not want to be exposed for messing up a ballot. This argument assumes voters are afraid of making mistakes. It also assumes privacy outweighs public accountability in a tight race.
The vote count remains razor thin. About 86 percent of the expected vote is tallied. Peltola holds 121,487 first-choice votes. That is 48.9 percent of the total. Incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan has 117,512 votes. That is 47.3 percent. The gap is 3,975 votes. Neither candidate is above 50 percent. The race will move to ranked-choice tabulation. This happens after absentee counting ends around November 18. Certification is expected on November 25.
The real danger lies with the other candidates. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. has 4,100 votes. Gerald Heikes has 5,426 votes. These totals exceed the current margin between the top two. If lower finishers are eliminated, their second choices get redistributed. Heikes alone could swing the result. The vote to repeal the ranked-choice system is also too close to call. It stands at 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent. The system itself is under legal fire while deciding the election. The court blocked access to the error logs. The count continues behind closed doors.
The judge ruled the state was too busy to look. The state claimed privacy was at stake. The voters get no clear picture of what went wrong. They must wait for the final count. The records will remain sealed until the bureaucracy deems it convenient. The margin is smaller than the third place candidate. The outcome depends on hidden preferences and unexamined rejections. The process is opaque by design. The final certification date is November 25.