Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is ordering an investigation into an effort to recruit candidates for the state's Senate race, including one with the same name as the incumbent Republican senator, following a New York Times report on the matter.
In a statement, Dunleavy said the report revealed new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska's elections by recruiting candidates he said were intended to confuse voters and misdirect their votes.
The Alaska Division of Elections investigated similar concerns in June, Dunleavy said, adding that the new reporting substantially supported the division's findings.
Dunleavy said he was directing the state's Department of Public Safety to investigate whether the effort violated Alaska law and whether criminal charges or civil action were warranted.
“The evidence will determine what happens next,” he said.
“Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support,” Dunleavy said. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”
He added that anyone or any organization found to have broken the law “must be held accountable.”
The Times report said it relied on 12 sources, text messages and documents that allegedly showed members of Peltola's campaign, lawyers for Peltola and senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) contributed to pushing Dan J. Sullivan, a Republican on Alaska's four-way ballot, to run.
The Times said the effort to find a spoiler candidate -- who could potentially siphon votes from Sen. Sullivan and benefit Peltola -- was internally referred to as the ballot composition project.
Alaskans for Mary, the campaign committee for Peltola, said through a spokesperson on Wednesday that it "has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign."
The DSCC told ABC News in a statement that it was "not involved with Dan J. Sullivan."
"Republicans have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns," a DSCC spokesperson wrote in the statement.
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