A man who is serving out a 20-year prison sentence will be allowed to remain on the ranked choice general election ballot in Alaska following a ruling by a state Superior Court judge.
On Tuesday, Jude Ian Wheeles in Anchorage paved the way for Eric Hafner to remain on the ballot for the only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that Alaska gets.
The Alaska Democratic Party had filed a request to remove Hafner from November’s ballot, but the judge denied that.
ABC News reported this week that it doesn’t appear that Hafner has any ties to Alaska. He pleaded guilty to making threats against police officers, judges and some other people in 2022, but those charges were handed down in New Jersey.
Still, he’s running as a Democrat in the Alaska race for a House seat. That race is led by Democratic Representative Mary Pelotola as well as Republican Nick Begich.
Lawyers representing the Democratic Party in Alaska argued that election officials in the state actually erred when they placed Hafner’s name on the ballot, saying he didn’t meet the requirements of someone who wants to serve in Congress.
They further argued that their efforts to help Peltola win re-election would be complicated by the fact that Hafner was on the ballot.
Thomas Amodio and David Fox, attorneys for the Alaska Democratic Party, argued in a court filing:
“[It will] confuse voters by presenting them with a candidate, putatively a Democrat, who Plaintiffs do not support and who would not be entitled to serve if elected.”
Alaska has a unique primary system, in which the four candidates who receive the most votes automatically advance to the general election in November, regardless of which party they’re from.
Hafner only garnered 467 votes during the state’s primary, placing him in sixth place. However, he was put on November’s ballot after two Republicans who finished ahead of him, Matthew Salisbury and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom, dropped out of the race.
Along with Dahlstrom, Begich and Peltola are the most recognizable candidates in the election. The trio garnered 97.4% of the state’s total vote in the primaries combined.
Begich has been trying to get conservatives to come together to give them the best chances at overcoming Peltola and capturing another House seat for the GOP. He supports various efforts that are underway to repeal the open primary and ranked vote in the general election the state currently follows.
The only requirements that there are to hold a seat on the U.S. House is that a person has to be 25 years old, be a citizen of the U.S. for at least seven years, and be an inhabitant of the state in which they’re running.
Yet, one-third of the candidates who ran in Alaska’s primary had an out-of-state address for their campaign.
Hafner lists a New York federal prison as his mailing address.
