Alaska election officials are redesigning the state’s U.S. Senate ballot after two candidates sharing the exact same name — Dan Sullivan — both filed to run for the seat, creating an identification problem that could confuse voters statewide.
The state began drafting a revised ballot format as of Tuesday, July 1, 2026, to help voters tell the two men apart. No final version has been released. What distinguishes the candidates beyond their names hasn’t been publicly detailed by election officials yet.
Name collisions on ballots aren’t unheard of in Alaska or elsewhere, but having two major-office candidates with identical full names on the same race is rare enough that standard ballot templates don’t account for it. Election officials typically resolve the problem by adding a middle name, a middle initial, or a geographic identifier — though Alaska hasn’t confirmed which approach it will use.
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican first elected in 2014, is seeking another term. The second Dan Sullivan’s party affiliation and background had not been formally confirmed in public filings reviewed before this report. Voters in past cycles have occasionally cast ballots for the wrong candidate in same-name races, and election integrity advocates have long flagged the issue as one with real consequences in close contests.
The Alaska Division of Elections has not announced a timeline for finalizing the revised ballot language or said when it will be submitted for approval.
