India
oi-PTI
Few people in India will recall that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections Hema Malini contested against Hema Malini in Mathura. Or that in 2019, Rahul Gandhi was pitted against another Rahul Gandhi, and even a Raghul Gandhi, in Wayanad.
These dummy candidates might be commonplace in India and might even provide comic relief to our gruelling electoral drama. But thousands of miles away, a similar dummy candidate in a remote part of the United States – in Alaska – has triggered a political firestorm ahead of the crucial mid-term elections that will virtually be a referendum on President Donald Trump’s policies and popularity.
President Trump alleges voter fraud in Alaska’s Senate election due to a namesake candidate potentially confusing voters, contrasting this with common “dummy candidate” practices previously seen in Indian elections involving figures like Hema Malini and Rahul Gandhi.
And Trump is milking the controversy, apparently triggered by the Democrats’ dirty tricks department, to his maximum advantage. According to almost all opinion polls, Trump’s Republican Party is trailing nationwide in the Nov. 3 elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate, the two chambers of Congress or parliament, including in Republican strongholds like Alaska.
In that detached-from-the-mainland state, Republican candidate for Senate, incumbent Daniel Sullivan, is facing a tough fight against Democrat candidate Mary Peltola. As if that was not enough, a third candidate on the ballot is also named Daniel Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher.
That in itself was not a big deal until the New York Times reported on Wednesday that the teacher Sullivan’s candidature was the result of a coordinated effort by Peltola’s team. Immediately, Trump cried foul and ordered a Justice Department investigation into alleged voter fraud.
The Trump administration’s contention is that the Alaska Democrats sought to confuse voters by recruiting a dummy candidate to siphon votes from the Republican Sullivan. “This is Voter Fraud at the Highest Level … this behavior in our Elections cannot be allowed to continue,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, and called for Peltola to be “removed from the ballot and prosecuted.”
On Thursday, CNN reported that the Justice Department “has dramatically accelerated a criminal probe” into the case, issuing dozens of new grand jury subpoenas and homing in on new potential charges. On the face of it, there is nothing illegal about a candidate of the same name entering the ballot.
The ballot paper itself identifies the two Sullivans clearly – one as the incumbent and the other with no party affiliation. “But Trump has spent years spinning false conspiracies about Democratic cheating and non-existent electoral fraud. Now, at last he has a data point to sculpt into a suggestive narrative,” wrote CNN’s political analyst Stephen Collinson. “And whether the OG (original) Dan Sullivan wins or loses, the president will be sure to highlight shenanigans in Alaska to claim Democrats everywhere are corrupt – especially if the GOP bombs on Tuesday (Nov. 3),” he wrote.
However, under US laws, elections are a state matter and it is up to the state to decide who enters the ballot and the Federal government has no say in it. The Justice Department probe therefore may not stand up in court. “But in politics, as opposed to the law, perception has long been as important as reality.
Trump understands this more instinctively than any modern president,” wrote Collinson. If Trump appears desperate to mount what could be a frivolous legal challenge, he has good reason to: it would be disastrous for him if the Republicans lose control of the 100-member Senate on top of a most likely loss in the House of Representatives. The Senate is hanging in the balance and a handful of states, including Alaska, will decide the outcome. A New York Times Sienna poll gave the Democrats a 51 to 45 per cent lead over Sullivan. If Alaska ends up deciding which party controls the Senate, expect major chaos as Trump will not give up without a massive fight.
In India too, a legal challenge was mounted in 2024 against double/duplicate/namesake/impostor/dupe candidates in the form of a public interest litigation. But the learned judges of the Supreme Court gave it a short shrift, saying somebody’s name, whether Rahul Gandhi or Lalu Prasad Yadav, cannot come in the way of their right to contest elections.
The master of dummy candidates in India was Ajit Jogi of the Congress party. In 2014, faced against BJP’s Chandulal Sahu in Mahsamund in Chhattisgarh, Jogi managed to gather at least seven other Chandulals to contest against the real Sahu. Three more were Chandurams. Still, the BJP’s Sahu won by a narrow margin even though the others also got a sizeable number of votes. For the record, Hema Malini lost the 2014 elections. Not the actress; the other one.
