Scott Kendall
Alaska election attorney who argued against striking the name-duplicate Dan Sullivan challenger, calling removal extreme and proposing a middle-initial ballot label instead.
Last refreshed: 14 June 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why does the man who designed Alaska's election system oppose striking the decoy candidate?
Timeline for Scott Kendall
Called the challenger's removal extreme and urged the state to add a middle initial to the ballot instead
US Midterms 2026: Alaska moves to strike a decoy- Who is Scott Kendall and why is he involved in the Alaska Senate ballot dispute?
- Scott Kendall is an Anchorage election attorney and the principal architect of Alaska's ranked-choice voting system. In June 2026 he argued against the state's move to remove same-name challenger Dan Sullivan from the Senate ballot, calling removal extreme and proposing a middle-initial label as a less-restrictive alternative.Source: Alaska Public Media, June 2026
- Did Scott Kendall create Alaska's ranked choice voting system?
- Yes. Kendall authored the 2020 Alaska ballot measure that created the state's top-four open primary and ranked-choice voting general election. He argued and litigated the measure and defended it in court after passage. The system has become a national model and is the framework under which the 2026 Alaska Senate race is being conducted.Source: Alaska Public Media, KTOO, 2024
- What did Scott Kendall say about removing the duplicate Dan Sullivan from the Alaska ballot?
- Kendall called the Alaska Division of Elections' move to strike the same-name challenger extreme. He argued the Division should instead ADD a middle initial to distinguish the two Dan Sullivans on the printed ballot, preserving ballot access while addressing voter confusion. The challenger had one day to respond to the ineligibility notice before a final ruling.Source: Alaska Public Media, June 2026
Background
Scott Kendall is an Anchorage-based attorney who specialises in election law and served as chief of staff to Governor Bill Walker. He is best known nationally as the primary author of the 2020 ballot measure that replaced Alaska's closed partisan primary and plurality general election with a top-four open primary and ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the general, a system that became a national model for election reform. He argued and litigated the measure through to passage and then defended it in court. In 2010 he served as counsel to Senator Lisa Murkowski's successful write-in re-election campaign, one of the most complex ballot-access cases in recent US Senate history.
In June 2026, Kendall appeared in the same-name Senate challenger dispute, arguing against the Alaska Division of Elections' move to strike challenger Dan Sullivan (the retired teacher) from the ballot. He called removal "extreme" and urged the Division to ADD a middle initial to the ballot instead, a narrower remedy that would preserve both candidates' access while eliminating voter confusion. His position reflects a consistent principle from his career: election-law disputes should be resolved through the least-restrictive means available, preserving ballot access over administrative convenience.
Kendall's RCV system is the precise architecture under which the Sullivan-Peltola race is being conducted, giving his opinion on the challenger's removal an added layer of authority: he designed the system in which the naming confusion arises. His firm, Cashion Gilmore and Lindemuth, handles a broad range of campaign and election clients across party lines, which reinforces his credibility as a non-partisan voice in a dispute that has been framed in partisan terms by Republican groups.