An Anchorage Superior Court judge is set to rule this week on whether the name of an incarcerated felon can appear on the ballot for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat.
Eric Hafner, a New Jersey man who was sentenced last year to 20 years in federal prison for threatening elected officials, came in sixth in Alaska’s U.S. House primary, with 467 out of nearly 109,000 votes. But after two Republican candidates dropped out of the race, the Alaska Division of Elections elevated Hafner — who is running as a Democrat — onto the ballot.
Under Alaska law, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.
Hafner has never lived in Alaska. Under the U.S. Constitution, an individual can run for Congress without residing in the state they are running to represent, as long as they vow to move to that state once they are elected.
The decision could have far-reaching consequences. Though Hafner is unlikely to win the seat, his appearance on the ballot could end up shifting results. Alaska’s seat is one of a small handful across the country that both Republicans and Democrats see as winnable. As such, it could play a role in determining which party has control of the chamber after the November election.
A legal challenge filed last week by the Alaska Democratic Party centers in part on the question of whether Hafner could ever meet the eligibility requirement for a state he appears never to have visited, given that he is serving his federal prison sentence roughly 3,000 miles away — in the state of New York.
Hafner himself has suggested that an ongoing appeal, compassionate release, or a presidential pardon could all be on the table as routes to becoming an Alaska resident for the first time.
“If ever there was a person who cannot possibly become an inhabitant of the state in which they seek election by Election Day, that person is Mr. Hafner,” said David Fox, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing the Alaska Democratic Party.
According to the District of New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, Hafner pleaded guilty to several charges for actions he took between 2016 and 2018, while residing outside the U.S., including making false bomb threats and attempting to extort $350,000 from some of his victims.
The Alaska Democratic Party is arguing that Hafner should not appear on the ballot — not only because his odds of meeting the residency requirement are slim at best — but because Alaska law explicitly allows the fifth-place vote getter to be elevated to the ballot if one of the top-four primary vote getters withdraws from the race, but the law makes no mention of the sixth-place vote getter.
“No matter what happens after the primary election, no matter who withdraws, no matter what changes, Mr. Hafner did not receive the fifth-most votes in the primary election,” Fox said during a hearing held Monday morning.
The Alaska Democratic Party is seeking an injunction that would stop the Division of Elections from printing ballots that have Hafner’s name on them. But the division has said that ballots have already been sent to the printer, and that such an injunction could throw the November election into chaos and jeopardize the delivery of ballots to overseas and military voters.
In its court filing, the state is arguing that the Division of Elections cannot disqualify candidates from appearing on the ballot based on the unlikelihood of the candidates’ eligibility to serve. The division must only examine whether the candidates are eligible to appear on the ballot, according to the state. Moreover, the state argued that a two-week delay in printing ballots would jeopardize “the success of the entire general election.”
Overseas ballots are required by law to be mailed on Sept. 21. In order to have the ballots prepared to be mailed by then, the division must begin folding and packing the ballots on Sept. 16, said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Flynn. Before the ballot folding takes place, the ballots must be tested in Juneau, which is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, said Flynn. Alaska’s ballots are printed at a facility in Homer, according to Flynn.
“The plaintiffs seem to think that ballots can be edited as easily as you can edit a Word document and just hit print on the computer, on the printer on your desk, but that’s not at all how it works,” said Flynn.
Flynn added that if the judge orders a two-week delay in the printing of ballots, the ballots would be delivered to overseas voters later than required by law. In 2020, the last presidential election year, 438 overseas voters cast absentee ballots.
Fox argued that there is ample time for the Division of Elections to print ballots without Hafner’s name on them.
“Trust me, the Alaska Democratic Party has no interest in throwing Alaska elections into chaos, but there is time to fix this problem and it’s important to get it right,” said Fox.
The Alaska Republican Party filed a motion to intervene in the case Monday, siding with the state in arguing that the injunction should not be granted and that Hafner’s name should remain on the ballot.
“The plaintiffs are simply incorrect in their argument that the state of Alaska can use ballot access to deny any candidate a place on the ballot purely because they might be unqualified to serve in the office at the time of election,” said Richard Moses, an attorney representing the Alaska Republican Party. “While it may seem very unlikely that this particular candidate can be an inhabitant of Alaska on Election Day, no one in this room can definitely say otherwise.”
Alaska’s U.S. House race is largely seen as a contest between Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican challenger Nick Begich III, a businessman who twice lost to Peltola in 2022. Peltola received nearly 51% of primary votes. Begich had 26%.
The top-four ballot is also set to feature John Wayne Howe, the chair of the Alaska Independence Party, which opposes Alaska’s statehood and most forms of taxation. Howe had 0.6% of the vote and came in fifth in the primary. He was elevated onto the ballot when Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom dropped out of the race after receiving around 20% of primary votes. The other candidate to drop out was a little-known Republican named Matthew Salisbury.
Alaska adopted ranked choice voting in 2020 for all general election contests. Under the voting system, the top vote-getter must receive more than 50% of first-place votes in order to win. If the top vote-getter does not cross that threshold, the winner is determined by a ranked choice tabulation, or instant runoff.
In its court filings, the Alaska Democratic Party argued that Hafner’s appearance on the ballot could be consequential — despite the virtual certainty that he would not win — because he could end up taking votes away from Peltola.
This is not the first time Hafner has run for Congress. He previously ran for a U.S. House seat in Oregon as a Democrat, and a Hawaii U.S. House seat as a Republican. His mother, Carol Hafner, also ran for Alaska’s U.S. House seat in 2018, followed by a run for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat in 2020, without ever residing in either state.
Carol Hafner appeared to be serving as her son’s de-facto campaign coordinator. In emails earlier this month, Carol Hafner said her son had only limited access to a phone and no access to the internet. It was not clear if Eric Hafner was aware that his candidacy had been challenged in court. He is not a party in the lawsuit.
Carol Hafner did not respond to questions about why she and her son had repeatedly entered congressional races in states where they did not live.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Ian Wheeles is set to rule Tuesday on the Alaska Democratic Party’s request for an injunction. The decision could then be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
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Publish date : 2024-09-09 13:33:00
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