Election skullduggery in Alaska | Hour 1

So, if you did not catch my show yesterday. First off, very hurtful. It's OK, though, you can go back and remedy that by going to thepeatpod.com and getting the podcast for free and then listening to it. But I covered the report from the Honest Elections Project, as well as the ranked choice voting system that's going on up in Alaska and how that system lends itself even more easily to to the kinds of political shenanigans and skullduggery that campaigns and parties engage in in order to win elections. The ranked choice voting, I'm not going to go into all of the details and the mechanism of how it works. I'm not a fan, to say the least, not a fan of the system. And it's pitched as a way to break the duopoly, right, as a way to say, well, all we get are these right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats that come out of the primaries, and then we get the choice of two terrible candidates. So we should do a better system, and we should give people the ability to rank all of the candidates, how they like them, and then when a candidate finishes last, we toss out their votes, which kind of raises a question with the whole one-man-one-vote principle, but I digress. We throw out the bottom finisher, we add their votes up, and then throw out the next finisher and add their votes up. And that's how they run their their system in the primaries in Alaska. And what has happened, as one could have imagined and in fact was entirely predicted, you've got a whole bunch of gamesmanship going on in the primaries because the more people you can throw on to ballots and confuse voters and the more you can hurt your opponent, your primary opponent, like the person who is the leading candidate. Let's say in the case of Alaska in the U.S. Senate race, it is the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan. And I need to say that's Dan S. Sullivan. Middle initials important because Democrats went out and found a man named Dan Sullivan, Dan J. Sullivan, who apparently forgot his own initials. when he filed his first paperwork and he wrote S, but then, oh, my bad, I meant J. Okay. And so they put somebody else into the race in order to confuse people. So when they go to the voting station and they go to cast their ballot, they'll have two Dan Sullivans. And the idea there is to split the support for Dan Sullivan and you deceive voters. Right. By finding a lefty who then registers as a Republican in order to trick people. That's the whole point of the scam. And you get a lot more of this in the ranked choice voting system because you have in the party primaries, the parties will vet those candidates and the parties will know if some Democrat just signed up as a Republican in order to win in a primary. And we saw something very similar here. in North Carolina in one of our Supreme Court races. I believe this was the race that Anita Earle's first won. She's up for re-election. She's a social justice warrior, activist, lawyer, now with a wardrobe change on our state Supreme Court. And she, I believe it was her, I think it was her race, and she benefited from a guy named Chris Anglin, who was not a Republican, became a Republican and ran to split the vote in order to harm the Republican judge that was on the ballot. Because at that point, the Supreme Court races did not have partisan identification. They were not coming through party primaries. And so you could end up with multiple people on the ballot. And that's what Anglin did for the Democrats. Not sure what his payout was for that. Um, I haven't seen anything that he's been doing recently. He's a I think he like is an ambulance chasing lawyer or something. So I'm not sure it actually redounded to his benefit because he was just like now statewide known as a deceiver. And I'm not sure that's something that that the courts look highly upon. So it might have actually harmed his ability in the courtroom. But I don't know. Don't know whatever became of the guy. But in Alaska. We've got this race with the two Dan Sullivans. And since this guy popped up, Republicans have been saying this is obviously a plant and Democrats obviously put him on the ballot. And the Democrats have said, no, no, no. This is just a retired school teacher who lives on an island off Alaska. It's only accessible by by air and and water. And so now he just he just he's a Republican now. And he's totally, you know, just got the same name as you. And just a coincidence, right? Yeah. I wasn't buying it either. And now of all places, the New York times, the New York times has exposed this scan. And it was in fact run by the, uh, the national Democrats and the, uh, Democrat campaign of Mary Peltola, uh, and she's the candidate in the U S Senate race, the only Democrat on the ballot. They actually went out and recruited a whole bunch of people, as many as they could. And they've got basically three Republicans on the ballot now. Um, you know, one in name only that's named Dan Sullivan, one actual Republican incumbent U S Senator, Dan Sullivan, Dan S Sullivan. And, and then another guy, uh, that was recruited by this same sort of shadowy dark arts, uh, election rigger, a guy by the name of Jared Kurtz, who coincidentally locked down all of his social media for some reason. So the New York Times, kudos to them for uncovering this story. Now, they they were given a lot of the information by a former Peltola campaign staffer who was disgruntled. And then she tried to retract her interview. but that's not how that works. Once you sit for interviews with a media publication and you give them a bunch of information, you show them all the text messages. At that point, you don't get to then say, oh, you know what? I take it all back. Backsies, yeah, that's not how that works. And so they went to print yesterday. So it starts in the summer of 2025. So last year, a staffer For Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was looking at a run for U.S. Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides. OK, so this came from the top of the campaign down to a staffer. And they told the staffer, find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can. For no reason, no reason whatsoever, just. Just curious how many Dan Sullivans are there. I just want to make sure. If there are five, we need to know who they are or something. So the staffer complied, just following orders, combing through voter records to produce a list of all of the Dan Sullivans from across the state. This was no random request. Dan S. Sullivan, the name of the state's Republican senator, And if the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the Senator crucial votes on the state's unusual four person ballot. And the plan worked this spring. This is the thing, you know, be careful what you wish for. You're like the dog that caught the car. You got your teeth on the bumper. And now what do you do with it? Because like, Had you tried it and it failed and you just kept on denying it, then eventually people would move on because it didn't have any impact. However, you succeeded. Now it is having an impact. And now more and more people are asking whether you did this or not. And you did. And now you're denying it. You're denying it in court. That's a pretty big deal, too. So now you're caught lying. about your plan rather than just saying yeah we did it why wouldn't you just say that because people would say oh that's scummy you shouldn't do that okay but you're denying it and now lying that you did it despite all of this evidence from the people who were doing it they this the staffer like gave all the receipts so now you're lying about not doing the scummy thing so now you so now you've been caught doing the scummy thing, and now you're lying about doing the scummy thing. But I guess in the modern Democrat Party, in the words of the late Harry Reid, well, he didn't win, did he? I guess that's all that matters, right? You can accuse your opponents of all sorts of things, and it doesn't matter. You can do all the scummy things, and it doesn't matter as long as you win. The ends justify the means, right? The plan worked. A retired teacher from a tiny fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle announced his candidacy for Senate. His name, Dan J. Sullivan. We'll get into how the plan unfolded, all the proofs, in a moment. The holidays will be here before you know it, and so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives, memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations. Create-A-Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs, that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now. They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. You're gathered around the holiday table with your loved ones, watching all these memories and people of your lives. You're sharing laughs, maybe some tears, telling stories that make your family uniquely yours. 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Internally, they called this the Ballot Composition Project, so they had a name for it. Involved in the project, the Peltola campaign's lawyers, as well as senior aides, At the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which directs the party's campaign strategy in Senate races across the country. And I would submit it's more than simple involvement. They were the ones that put the dark arts operative into Alaska. They were they have their guys. And this guy, Jared Kurtz, is one of their guys. And they sent him to Alaska where he went under an assumed name. And reached out to people and met with them at delis and bars and such to try to get people to file to run, to convince them that they had a shot. We can support you. From Washington to Anchorage, those advisers participated in regular conversations about the effort and even considered forming a new political party to draw conservatives onto the ballot. They wanted to create the MAGA party. Ha ha ha. So. the staffer, the former campaign manager and longtime aide to Mary Peltola. Her name is Elisa Rios, and she said Alaskan voters need to know. Now, she was let go in a staff shakeup back in August. She agreed to do a bunch of interviews with The New York Times, gave them a bunch of the proof that was probably part of her litigation. She was suing over wrongful termination or something. She said there was a lot of speculation and voters should get the full picture when making their decisions. Now, last week, as the New York Times was getting ready to publish this article, Ms. Rios, who was planning to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against the campaign, contacted the paper and said she wanted to take back her previous statements. She has not yet filed said lawsuit against the campaign, which makes me wonder, did they pay her, right? Are they settling the lawsuit, quote unquote, because that's sure what it looks like. The operation had impact. Ms. Peltola will be the only Democrat on the ballot facing off against the two Mr. Sullivans and a long shot candidate named Gerald Hikes or Hikey, Hikey, Hikey's, Whatever. He has also been recruited into the race, according to the Times reporting, and polls give Peltola a strong chance of winning. And now the Peltola campaign, as well as the DSCC, denied participating in any effort to recruit the spoilers, but neither group answered a detailed list of questions provided by the New York Times. We'll get to Jared Kurtz. in a minute. First, let me jump over here to the phone lines and get Ralph. Hello, Ralph. Welcome to the program. Well, Pete, you know, before you brought this up about her getting a non-disclosure payment agreement or whatever, I was thinking they should have checked that Sullivan, that Dan J. Sullivan's bank account. If possible, there was any electronic wires to that. And And I know it had to be in litigation, but that's trying to throw an election. Wouldn't that be under federal election law, some type of violation? So this sort of activity is not illegal. It's not illegal. Now, lying to a court is, which they may have done. But to your question about the money. Apparently, the phony Dan Sullivan of Alaska had a single campaign expense, and it was to a law firm in D.C. called Kaplan and Drysdale. And they're known for representing high profile Democrats. Senior counsel for that law firm is a guy named Trevor Potter. He formed the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration, along with our old pal Mark Elias. Yeah, his fingerprints are all over this as well. So somehow or another, that campaign account got a bunch of money, and they were able to pay this law firm. Who was funding that campaign? Don't know yet. Well, and I got two little bullet points, Pete. I lost a friend over on Sam Wilson Road in Morris Chapel, and him and his girlfriend were riding a motorcycle. And I just want to tell everybody to get out and vote. I mean, with this stuff going on in Alaska... We're fighting for the heart and soul of this country and the rule of law and just the freedom of liberty to survive in our own country. And a lot of this stuff due to high prices is brought on by people that break the law, break our immigration laws, and we're paying for it. So that's all I've got to say, but I thought— out to Ronnie Quinn and Dana, uh, Gibson. All right. Yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you, Ralph. I appreciate the call. Um, yeah, the, um, the, there was a sort of a 10% rule, like 90% of the population has to adjust the way we live and have to spend all of this money because 10% of the population behaves in antisocial ways. And I mean, you think, you know, We pay for parks that get overrun with homeless people. Right. We pay for courts and stuff and we have to pay for all the security because 10 percent behaves in antisocial ways. So, yeah. And we don't have we don't have to continue to live like this. These are choices. And if you keep putting the same people in that are making the same choices, don't expect different results. All right. Real quick. Every government number gets revised. Right. Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. Let me get to a couple of the text messages that have been coming in. Walt says, election interference is a federal crime. I'm hoping when the feds get done, there will be lots of sad faces in the Democrat Party and people off to prison. So this is a matter for debate, and it's going to get litigated. I'm sure people are already filing motions. The DOJ is already petitioning a court in this. I've seen people refer to 18 U.S. Code Section 241 conspiracy against rights. I'm not sure how to read this into the Alaska case. Well, because here's what it says. If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any person in any state, territory, Commonwealth possession or district, unless you're a member of the Black Panther Party, in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised the same, blah, blah, blah, and then filed under this title in prison, not more than 10 years and fines. Okay, so the key here is if two or more, because then there's another section, but it talks about persons going in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with intent to hinder So this seems and I believe this statute came about in the 40s. So this would have been this would have been in response to the Klan, basically. Right. The voter intimidation, violence, suppression. That's what it seems like it's it's geared towards. So the key here to me, at least, is if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, dot, dot, dot. So by putting a fake person, somebody with the same name on the ballot, are you injuring some other, right? And I don't know if to injure is strictly physical injury. It could also mean, you know, like you suffer damages, right? And that's monetary damages. So like you think of the word damage and you think physical damage, but there's also monetary damage. damages as well so if you're trying to injure somebody does an injury include uh tricking them while they exercise the franchise right while they're voting that you're trying to injure them or oppress them somehow so i yeah i just don't know and that may be what gets litigated in this regard because the evidence is pretty clear according to the new york times article You've got a guy named Jared Kurtz, um, who in 2025, the democratic senatorial campaign committee, the DSCC, they dropped this guy into Alaska for the Peltola campaign. Okay. A veteran democratic operative named Jared Kurtz. And, um, they introduced him to, uh, Elisa Rios, the former campaign manager for the Peltola campaign, as well as the former chief of staff for the campaign, Anton McParland. OK, this guy, Jared Kurtz, is a native of Ohio, and he was introduced as a specialist in secret ballot maneuvers. Which should raise some questions about. about what other operations this guy has been involved in. Secret ballot maneuvers, because that can include a whole lot of things, right? Has he ever crossed lines into illegality? This is somebody who's on the, like he's in the Rolodex or on the payroll of the DSCC. Months later, in early 2026, he participated in a video call with members of the ballot composition team, as they were calling it, the Ballot Composition Project. And he told the group that he had made contact with one of the Dan Sullivans that was identified by a staffer of the campaign at the direction of senior campaign officials. We don't know who those people are. And he told the Zoom call that he met with the guy Dan Sullivan, Dan J. Sullivan, Decoy Dan. And Decoy Dan said that he hated Trump. He wanted to help Mary Peltola. He did not have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help, he would do it. Sullivan has maintained that he entered the race of his own volition. However, he did not respond to the New York Times as repeated requests for comment. According to the Federal Election Commission records, a pro-Peltola super PAC called 49th State PAC paid a firm called Wingspan Strategies, about $ 87, 000 for services. Okay. Well, what is Wingspan Strategies? What were they doing? Well, Wingspan Strategies is co-owned by, wait for it, Jared Kurtz. The PAC, 49th State PAC that paid Wingspan Strategies and Jared Kurtz, um, They said in a statement that it had never hired or paid Jared Kurtz for performing any services. We just hired his firm. We didn't pay him. We just hired the firm that he owns. Right. Kurtz did not respond to repeated requests for comment. And in recent days, he has removed his LinkedIn profile from public view and he made his account private. The former chief of staff, Anton McParland, he asked for updates from Jared repeatedly, and the DSCC officials would quickly schedule the calls. This is according to the text messages that were provided to the New York Times. So just in case there's any ambiguity here, like, well, we don't really know if the DSCC was involved. No, they were the go-between. They brought the guy in. They were the conduit, so whenever the campaign needed to reach this guy, this dark artist, this secret ballot maneuver expert that the DSCC uses, they would contact the DSCC, and then they would get him on the line. That's how that worked. From the text line, Beth's favorite Russ texts in, Yeah. I imagine it would be difficult to keep denying your involvement in a scheme when you have actually given that scheme a code name. Yes. It's kind of a giveaway. Yeah. John from New Jersey says, I cannot decide which to root for a Republican success in the midterms or the comment to put us out of our misery. Yes. Uh, you can vote for the sweet meteor of death. Um, That is one of the options, I believe, on all of the ballots. So what does Mary Peltola have to say about all of this? Well, she was at a campaign rally in Soldotna, Alaska. And the real issue here, she says, it's not this skullduggery that her campaign did or whatever. No, no, no, no. It's the real problem is that you've noticed this is right. The real, the real villains in the story are the people who noticed the thing. This is just another distraction. It's another diversion every day. It's some new, you know, look over here moment. Yeah. Not Dan Sullivan registered Republican incumbent voted for this war in Iran 14 times. Lisa Murkowski quit voting for that war in Iran six months ago. And he's doubling and tripling down. And this is not somebody who's working in our best interest. And anybody who's working in our best interest isn't going to talk about the nonsense. This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions. Nobody at the New York Times cares about affordability in Alaska. Yeah, the New York Times famously does not care about... About getting Democrats elected. Yeah, that right wing rag, the New York Times. Yeah, they're just in it to sell subscriptions. That's the only thing going. This is all a distraction. You shouldn't pay this any attention. Pay no attention to the scam behind the curtain. August 18th was the primary. Both Dan Sullivan's advanced into the four way general election ballot. One problem, the fourth spot on the ballot went to another Democrat who could siphon some of the votes away from Mary Peltola. That was a progressive named David Leslie. He quickly faced calls from the Democrat Party to withdraw. One of the people calling on him to do so, Jared Kurtz, the dark artist. Kurtz then met with Mr. Leslie in person at a cafe in Fairbanks, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Don't know who that would be. Leslie soon agreed to drop out. Leslie's exit cleared the way for another Republican to take his spot on the ballot, Mr. Gerald Heikes, a drywall con who said he was recruited to run for Senate this spring by a, quote, guy from the Midwest. Kurtz is from Ohio, by the way. He says, though, after that meeting, he felt like God was telling him to run for office. Yeah. Yeah. Even as the Peltola campaign and DSCC officials denied participation in the operation, the texts and documents reviewed by the New York Times show it involved the party's Senate committee and its top law firm. At one point, the Peltola campaign aides toyed with an audacious idea to establish a right-wing state party that could challenge the incumbent senator. So they called up the DSCC. And the DSCC said, smart, let's see. And then they put them in touch with Jacqueline Lopez, an attorney with the Elias Law Group. There you go. The same law group that our very own Roy Cut-Em-Loose Cooper has used for years and years. Mark Elias and his band of merry pranksters. that, you know, litigate all over the country. Mark Elias and his law firm sent the cease and desist letter when somebody asked a question of whether or not Roy Cooper had any health issues, when our friend A.P. Dillon at the North State Journal asked the question, and then they were threatened with litigation. The firm represents both the DSCC as well as the Peltola campaign. That's who they relied on. Now, whether or not this can actually create any legal problems remains to be seen. Abbie Cambly, who is a partner at Holtzman Vogel, former DOJ official, Kansas deputy attorney general, former federal prosecutor. He says the non incumbent decoy, Dan Sullivan, made representations to the court. that he was not trying to confuse or mislead voters, and that he ran as a Republican because he believes in conservative principles and Republican viewpoints. All this sets up a problem about whether he lied to the court in addition to the public. That's a problem. And by the way, this is not new. You may recall in 1946, 29-year-old John F. Kennedy ran for his first political office and The Kennedy campaign found a 27 year old local janitor from Boston's West End who also shared the name of his opponent. They got him into the race and paid him to split the vote for one Joseph Russo. This is not new, folks. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to ThePeteCalenderShow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.