A former Alaska Republican lawmaker told Fox News Digital the FBI interviewed him after an apparent Democratic political operative allegedly posed as a conservative recruiter and tried to persuade him to enter the state’s U.S. Senate race amid an intensifying congressional investigation into the controversial “Decoy Dan Sullivan” ballot scheme.
The allegations raise questions about potential federal criminal liability. Article III Project attorney Will Chamberlain argued that a coordinated effort to deceive voters about a candidate’s identity could violate 18 U.S.C. § 241, the federal conspiracy-against-rights statute.
The revelations come after former campaign staff for Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola spoke to the New York Times about their knowledge of a reported scheme to stack Alaska’s four-person ballot with other “Dan Sullivans” to help siphon votes from incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The ballot ultimately included Peltola, incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, Republican Gerald Heikes and retired Petersburg teacher Dan J. Sullivan. Whether the similarly named candidate diverted votes or affected the outcome remains unproven.
Chamberlain told Fox News Digital the alleged operation could constitute a federal felony if prosecutors establish that participants conspired to interfere with voters’ constitutional rights.
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“The basic concept is you’re not allowed to conspire to injure or harm people’s constitutional rights. And one of those rights is to vote for the candidate of your choice,” Chamberlain said.
“These people conspired to put a fake ‘Decoy Dan’ Sullivan on the ballot in order to trick people who were going into the ballot box intending to vote for the incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan,” he alleged. “There’s a lot of good precedent on this that suggests that’s a crime and a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”
Chamberlain cited historical cases involving ballot manipulation, while acknowledging that the precise circumstances of recruiting a same-name candidate have not previously been addressed in an identical case.
“Nothing exactly like this has happened before in the sense of recruiting a same-name candidate to trick people in the ballot box,” he said, adding that a lot of slanted electoral messaging is not illegal.
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“If you want to pretend that another Republican is better than the current incumbent or pretend that the incumbent’s not running and then persuade someone to vote for that candidate, that’s not a ‘conspiracy against rights’ because the right to vote for the candidate of your choice has not been impinged upon,” he said.
“It’s the fact that when you’re conspiring to put two people with the exact same name on the ballot to trick people who are going in there intending to vote for the incumbent and get them to vote for somebody else by deception.”
Meanwhile, former state Rep. David Eastman, a Republican from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, told Fox News Digital by phone from Wasilla that he was approached by an operative under what he later surmised were false pretenses to recruit him into the race. Eastman said he also received several “fake mailers” suggesting “Decoy Dan” Sullivan was the real or only Sullivan in the race.
The mailers, shared with Fox News Digital, are framed in a “meet the candidates” format and do omit Senator Sullivan.
Eastman told Fox News Digital he was approached in the Mat-Su by an operative he later identified in a blog post as Jerid Kurtz, who was named in the New York Times report. Eastman said the operative claimed to represent conservative donors and encouraged him to run for Senate.
“He approached me through a constituent. I sat down with him in April here in Wasilla,” Eastman said.
“He pretended to represent conservative donors and was looking for conservative candidates to run for federal office; none of which was true,” Eastman added.
Eastman alleged Kurtz “pretended” to represent conservative donors and used a false name, but said the operative never mentioned either Sullivan or disclosed an intention to confuse voters during their meeting.
Fox News Digital reached out to the DSCC, Peltola’s campaign and Wingspan Strategies — where Kurtz is named in congressional documents as a co-owner — for comment. Dan J. Sullivan reportedly “vanished” as investigators began knocking on doors in his remote community, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The allegations come as federal investigators examine whether Democratic political operatives improperly recruited Dan J. Sullivan in an effort to confuse voters who intended to support Senator Sullivan.
The controversy has also reached Capitol Hill. In an October 29 letter, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requested that Kurtz appear for an in-person transcribed interview on November 6 concerning allegations that operatives associated with Mary Peltola’s campaign sought to recruit similarly named candidates to confuse voters.
“As a Democrat operative who was allegedly tasked with assisting in this effort, you have information that will assist the Committee’s investigation,” Comer wrote.
“If you do not voluntarily appear for the interview, we will be forced to evaluate the use of compulsory process,” he warned.
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Eastman said Kurtz did not mention either Sullivan or disclose an effort to confuse voters during their April meeting. He nevertheless questioned the operative’s intentions after subsequent reporting connected Kurtz to the alleged candidate recruitment effort.
Eastman also confirmed the FBI has interviewed him. Fox News Digital reached out to the bureau for comment.