Alaska Supreme Court rules that incarcerated candidate can appear on U.S. House ballot

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a jailed candidate who came in sixth in Alaska’s U.S. House race could remain on the ballot.

The Alaska Democratic Party had sought to remove from the ballot the name of Eric Hafner, who is running as a Democrat in Alaska while serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to harassing elected officials in New Jersey.

The one-page decision by the Alaska Supreme Court guarantees that two convicted felons will appear on Alaska’s ballots in November. Former President Donald Trump was convicted earlier this year, but will not be sentenced until after the November election concludes.

The Alaska Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision in a 4-1 split. Justice Susan Carney dissented.

It’s rare, but not unheard of, for convicted felons to run for Congress. For example, Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven felony counts of corruption shortly before the 2008 election.

Alaska Democratic Party Executive Director Lindsay Kavanaugh said Thursday that the ruling set an “extremely dangerous precedent.”

“It terrifies me how we have just signaled to anybody convicted of any crime, incarcerated for any amount of time, that you could run in this state,” said Kavanaugh.

Hafner’s candidacy in a high-profile U.S. House race has raised eyebrows not only because he is in the middle of a lengthy federal prison sentence. Hafner has also never resided in Alaska.

Federal law allows candidates to run for office in states where they do not reside, as long as they plan to establish residency in the state if elected. The Alaska Democratic Party originally argued that Hafner should be excluded from the ballot because he would be unable to establish residency in the state, given that he is serving his prison sentence 3,000 miles away, in the state of New York.

But in arguments before the Alaska Supreme Court, an attorney representing the Alaska Democratic Party, tried to make the case that Hafner did not receive enough votes to appear on Alaska’s ballot, irrespective of his felony convictions or state of residency.

Under Alaska’s top-four primary system — which was adopted by ballot measure in 2020 — the top four primary vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

Hafner finished sixth in last month’s primary election, with 467 out of nearly 109,000 votes. But the third- and fourth-place finishers — both Republicans — dropped out of the race after primary votes were counted, leading the Division of Elections to place the names of fifth- and sixth-place finishers on the ballot.

David Fox, the attorney representing the Alaska Democratic Party, said that the Alaska statute allows for the fifth-place finisher to appear on the ballot if one of the top four vote-getters drop out, but the statute says nothing about the sixth-place finisher.

The statute in question states that if one of the top four candidates withdraws from the race, “the vacancy shall be filled by the director by replacing the withdrawn candidate with the candidate who received the fifth most votes in the primary election.”

Attorneys for the state Division of Elections and the Alaska Republican Party, which intervened in the case and sided with the state, argued that even though the statute does not explicitly mention elevating any candidate onto the ballot other than the fifth-place finisher, the Division of Elections should continue to replace candidates that drop out to ensure there are four candidates on the ballot whenever possible.

When voters adopted in 2020 the ballot measure that put in place the top-four primary system, “the voters wanted more choice, not less,” said Assistant Attorney General Jessie Alloway.

“So to the extent that it’s within the confines of the law and within the deadline, that statute is best read to give them that, and to replace more than one candidate if that second candidate withdraws,” Alloway concluded.

Under Alaska’s voting system, general elections are determined by ranked choice voting. A candidate must receive more than 50% of first-place votes to win outright. Otherwise, the winner is determined by a ranked choice tabulation, also called an instant runoff.

The race is largely seen as one between Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who had nearly 51% of primary votes, and Republican challenger Nick Begich III, who had 26% of primary votes. Peltola first won the seat in 2022, after the sudden death of Republican longtime U.S. Rep. Don Young. Peltola twice defeated Begich in 2022 — both in the special election to replace Young and in the subsequent general election.

The Alaska Republican Party is openly opposed to the state’s open primaries and ranked choice voting. Alaskans will be asked in November whether they wish to retain the system.

After the primary, Alaska GOP leaders pressured third-place finisher Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and fourth-place finisher Matthew Salisbury to drop out of the race, arguing it would clear the path for Begich to more easily defeat Peltola. In 2022, the dueling candidacies of Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin — two high-profile Republicans — were credited with helping Peltola secure the win.

The Alaska Democratic Party had argued that though Hafner stands virtually no chance of winning the election, his presence on the ballot could harm Peltola’s candidacy because, like her, he is running as a Democrat.

Kavanaugh and other leaders of the Alaska Democratic Party said Thursday that Hafner’s inclusion on the ballot — which had already begun to garner national attention — was “embarrassing to our state.” The Alaska Republican Party, meanwhile, said in a social media post about the decision that Thursday was “a great day for all Alaskans.”

The lower court decision, which was upheld by the Alaska Supreme Court, was reached by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Ian Wheeles, who wrote earlier this week in an 18-page opinion that under ranked choice voting, there was no basis to argue that Hafner’s appearance on the ballot would change the results of the election. Because the Division of Elections has already sent ballots to be printed earlier this month, an order removing Hafner’s name could jeopardize the integrity of the election, Wheeles wrote.

Wheeles is a registered Republican. Marla Greenstein, executive director of the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct, said that while the Alaska Republican Party was a participant in the case, Wheeles’ GOP affiliation was not grounds for disqualification.

It was not immediately clear how Hafner’s candidacy would affect Alaska’s race. Hafner has no access to the internet and only very limited access to phone calls, according to his mother, Carol Hafner, who has acted as de facto spokesperson for her son. Carol Hafner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

Eric Hafner previously ran for U.S House seats in Hawaii as a Republican and Oregon as a Democrat. This will be his first appearance on a general election ballot. Carol Hafner also ran for Alaska’s U.S. House seat in 2018, and for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat in 2020.

In addition to Peltola, Begich and Hafner, Alaska’s U.S. House race will also include John Wayne Howe, chair of the Alaska Independence Party, which opposes Alaska’s statehood. Howe came in fifth with 0.6% of the vote.