(The Center Square) - Eric Hafner is serving time in a federal prison in New York, but he could still be on the general election ballot for Alaska's sole congressional seat.
Hafner, who attorneys said has never resided in Alaska, received the sixth-highest number of votes in the ranked-choice election for the congressional seat currently held by Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska. But after Republicans Nancy Dahlstrom and Matthew Salisbury dropped out, Hafner took the fourth place spot. He received 467 votes of the 108,407 cast in the August primary.
While Hafner is listed as a registered Democrat, he is not supported by the Alaska Democratic Party, which sued state elections officials to remove Hafner from the ballot.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Ian Wheeles said he could rule as soon as Tuesday on the case after hearing arguments Monday. The arguments were available to the public via teleconference.
Hafner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in December for targeting politicians, judges, police and private citizens with threats and extortion attempts, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The U.S. Constitution requires congressional candidates to be 25 years old and a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, but there is no residency requirement to appear on a ballot. But if elected, a candidate would be required to live in the state he or she represents, which could be difficult for someone serving a prison sentence until 2036 in New York. And there's no evidence he sought a pardon, said David Fox, an attorney for the Democratic Party. Hafner, who pled guilty, does have an appeal pending, Fox said.
"I think it's more than outlandish to suggest that Mr. Hafner will become an inhabitant of Alaska by two months of the day," Fox said.
Outside the remote chance that Hafner would win and have to move to Alaska, the law is clear, Fox said.
"The top four candidates from the primary election advance to the general election," Fox said. "And if one of them withdraws or drops out, they're replaced by the candidate that receives the fifth most votes in the primary election. Mr. Hafner received the six most votes in the primary election so the defendants have no authority to place him on a ballot."
The statute also says "top four" candidates should advance, and it should be the top four, according to Thomas Flynn, who represents the Division of Elections. Hefner was in fifth place at one point when the first candidate withdrew, he said.
State election officials said Hafner's candidacy should have been challenged in the primary.
"Mr. Hafner's qualifications, as they argue it, hasn't changed since then," Flynn said. "He has by all accounts been in prison since then. It isn't like he was convicted of this in the intervening time. So if they wanted a challenge they could have done it then."
Granting an injunction would make mail-in ballots late, Flynn told Wheeles.
"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," Flynn said.
The candidates are programmed into a software and changing all of that takes time, according to Flynn. If there is a two-week delay, election officials would miss a mandated Sept. 20 deadline to mail overseas ballots, he said.
"It's time that the division doesn't have at this point," Flynn said.
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