The Justice Department pressed Alaska. More than 49 million have voted.

WASHINGTON — As the campaign for Congress entered its final weekend, the Trump administration stepped up its legal intervention in the Alaska Senate race, Reuters reported Saturday. The Justice Department accelerated its criminal investigation on Friday, after reports that aides to the Democratic candidate recruited a retired schoolteacher from a remote fishing village onto the ballot because he has the same name as the Republican incumbent. The department, acting on a civil lawsuit that President Trump said he instigated, also filed further motions to block Alaska from certifying the Senate result if Dan S. Sullivan loses a race that includes the nonpartisan candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

Early voting has set a midterm record. More than 49 million Americans have already cast ballots, in person or by mail, the University of Florida’s Election Lab told Reuters, up from nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day in 2022. This desk is printing that count. It is not folding it into Friday’s state-by-state tally.

The photograph is Friday, Oct. 30, at Midtown Mall in Anchorage. Emily Mesner made it for Reuters. People are arriving to vote. It is not the two Dan Sullivans. Mary Peltola is not in the frame.