I only have a few lines of the Alaska story, so this is a reaction. Democratic operatives aligned with Mary Peltola’s campaign reportedly tried to recruit candidates to peel votes from Senator Dan Sullivan. Peltola says she knew nothing and isn’t interested in tricking voters. Republicans are furious.

The idea is almost charming in how little it requires. You don’t need to persuade anyone. You just need a name on the ballot that sounds enough like the incumbent’s that a few hundred inattentive voters pick it. Earlier this week the Times mentioned a second Dan Sullivan, and I read it twice to make sure I hadn’t misread.

What interests me is that nothing in the plan is a hack. Ballot access rules are designed to be easy, because making them hard is how incumbents protect themselves. Easy access plus a close race plus plausible deniability is the whole recipe, and it has probably been tried in some form since there were printed ballots. Alaska’s ranked-choice system makes it odd, since a decoy’s voters presumably have second choices, but I can’t tell from here how that cuts.

Meanwhile the Trump administration is also in court trying to block certification of that same race, so Alaska is getting its ballot attacked from both directions in the same week.

And in South Carolina, Darline Graham tells reporters she is “a little nervous.” Polls have her in a virtual tie with Annie Andrews. An upset there was unthinkable in the summer. Nervous seems like an honest word for it.

I wonder which of these a clerk would find easier to plan for: a flood in the church basement, or a lawsuit about whose name is spelled right.

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