In Petersburg, Alaska, an FBI agent left a business card at a boat dealership this week.
The agent was looking for Charles Flint, who gave $500 over the summer to the Senate campaign of Daniel J. Sullivan. That's the second Dan Sullivan on Alaska's ballot, the one federal investigators believe Democrats helped put there to confuse voters and siphon votes from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Agents wanted to know whether Flint had been misled about which Dan Sullivan he was backing. He says he wasn't.
He also told reporters how he plans to vote: Mary Peltola first and Daniel J. Sullivan second.
So a donor to the "other" Dan Sullivan is ranking the Democrat at the top of his ballot.
Flint wasn't the only one who got a visit. Agents knocked on doors in at least two remote Alaska towns, including Sitka, and even talked to a donor couple in Massachusetts. U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman says the investigation has been going on for months, and that recent reporting brought a "significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska."
Democrats had a name for what's being investigated: the "ballot composition project." According to the New York Times, aides tied to Peltola's campaign and senior staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Senate Democrats' campaign arm, worked to recruit a candidate with the exact same name as the Republican senator. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg, ended up on the ballot beside the real one.
The DSCC's denial gives away the strategy. It says it had "no involvement" in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan "or any other Republican candidate." The second Dan Sullivan is running as a Republican. Splitting Republican votes is the whole point of the plan the Times described.
Alaska also uses ranked-choice voting, so a confused voter can do more than waste a vote. They can scramble their entire ballot.
The investigations keep stacking up. The Justice Department has issued dozens of subpoenas and asked a court to set aside ballots that rank Dan J. Sullivan. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered a separate state investigation. House Oversight Chairman James Comer has called Peltola's former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, to testify on November 5, and Democratic operative Jerid Kurtz the next day. Sen. Ron Johnson's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has ordered records preserved.
"Democrats are the party of fraud," Comer said. "Democrats schemed to rig the U.S. Senate election in Alaska."
Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Republicans' campaign committee, went further. "It is a criminal offense to collude on behalf of a candidate," he said, "and that's exactly what Mary Peltola, the Democrats, are trying to do to the real Dan Sullivan."
Peltola calls the allegations "garbage" and says she doesn't "need any help winning this race." Her campaign and the DSCC deny any involvement, and the second Sullivan says he decided to run on his own.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Democratic Party has gone quiet. Fox News asked 42 leading Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Cory Booker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore, whether they condemn the scheme. Not one responded.
These are the same people who spent the last six years warning that democracy is under attack. Now a Democratic operation is accused of planting a decoy on a ranked-choice ballot to fool voters, and none of them have anything to say.
Alaska votes Tuesday. The FBI is still knocking on doors. Somewhere in Petersburg, a business card is sitting on a counter at a boat dealership.
