The Alaska primary ballot for U.S. Senate this year will include both incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, and another candidate named Dan J. Sullivan. Both will have “Republican” next to their names.

The problem of two candidates for a single office with the same name is an old problem, and some states even have laws to deal with the problem. For example, in California, candidates with the same name are given a number placed on the ballot in parentheses.

In 1930, opponents of Nebraska U.S. Senator George Norris recruited another candidate named George Norris to run against him in the Republican primary. But the second George Norris failed to qualify for the primary ballot. The incident received a lot of attention, and it caused confusion in the oral argument in Jenness v Fortson, in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971. Chief Justice William Burger mentioned the problem, but his memory was faulty. He thought the second George Norris tried to qualify as an independent candidate in the general election. When the decision came out, avoiding “deception” was listed as one of the three state interests in having severe petition requirements for independent and minor party candidates. There had been nothing in the written briefs about “deception”, but Burger’s mistake ended up inside the opinion. Jenness v Fortson upheld Georgia’s 5% petition, and is the most harmful ballot access decision ever issued by the Supreme Court.

In New Mexico, an irrational law says that even after a party has petitioned for qualified status, it must then also submit a petition for each of its nominees (except for presidential nominees). This “double-petitioning” requirement is unique in the nation. After the party has nominated someone in a convention, that nominee should be deemed to have public support, because the nominee is the choice of a party that has already shown public support. Maryland once had a system like this, but Maryland’s highest state court invalidated it in a 2003 Green Party victory.

The Forward Party is a ballot-qualified minor party in New Mexico and now it is engaged in completing nominee petitions, including two tough petitions for statewide office. They each need 14,246 signatures. The nominees are Bob Perl for U.S. Senate, and Michael Vigil for Auditor. If the party successfully completes either petition, that will have been the most difficult ballot petition ever completed by the Forward Party in any state. The petition deadline is June 22.

The 2023 session of the New Mexico legislature doubled the nominee petition requirement in 2023, in one of the worst changes to ballot access in the last four years.