Less than a week before Election Day, The New York Times reported that people with links to Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s U.S. Senate campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had recruited a candidate to the race whose name is nearly identical to that of the incumbent Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, whom Peltola was challenging. The plan aimed to siphon votes from the incumbent senator and help Peltola win, according to the reporting.

The story has driven calls for prosecutions, lawsuits and state action. But as a political scientist who studies election law, I can say that the spoiler candidate is one of the oldest tricks in the American campaign toolbox, and the law has rarely touched it.

For most of the 1800s, American elections were conducted with ballots designed and printed by the parties. There were no official ballots printed by the state.

In those days, the addition of a rival name to a party ballot by an insidious printer could swing countless votes to the opposing party. The tactic was well known, and voters were often warned to look out for the “Spurious Ticket.”

By the 1890s, the government-printed ballot had gained widespread adoption and ended the practice of counterfeit tickets. But that would not be enough to deter those who wanted to deceive voters.

As observers in Alaska have noted, recruiting candidates with similar or identical names is not a new move.

In John F. Kennedy’s first congressional primary, his opponent was a city councilor named Joseph Russo. An aide to Kennedy reportedly paid a janitor with the same name to enter the race. The real Russo complained, but in the end, Kennedy took more votes in the 1946 race than the Russos combined.

Eight years later, the name Kennedy worked the other........

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