We've been trying to keep up with covering all of the twists and turns being seen in Alaska's race for the state's lone seat in the House of Representatives. It's a complicated task, particularly because of all of the complexities of the state's bizarre ranked-choice voting system. The race finally appeared to settle down this month to what should amount to a head-to-head matchup between incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican challenger Nick Begich. But now an even stranger wrinkle has been added into the mix. Peltola is also being challenged by another Democrat named Eric Hafner. What makes Hafner so unique is the fact that he's never even been to Alaska in his life and he's currently residing in a jail cell in New York. And yet a judge ruled this week that he must appear on the ballot. You might be thinking that's impossible, but under Alaska's rules, pretty much anything goes, or so it seems. (NPR)

A fringe candidate who's never been to Alaska and is currently in federal prison in New York is set to appear on the general election ballot for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, following a judge’s ruling.

The Alaska Democratic Party says it plans to appeal the decision to the state’s high court.

The candidate, Eric Hafner, is running as a Democrat in an effort to unseat Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. In Alaska’s election system, four congressional candidates, regardless of party, appear on a general election ballot together, after advancing in a nonpartisan primary.

As we discussed here previously, the Democrats managed to put Peltola in office by splitting the GOP vote in an R+9 state three ways in 2022. They wanted to do the same thing this time, but the GOP reached an agreement wherein the Republican with the most primary votes (Begich) would move on to the general election while the others would drop out. But four people get to move on to the general election regardless of party affiliation. When the other two GOP candidates left the race, Hafner (who finished in 6th place with barely 0.5% of the vote) was moved up to fourth place.

The Democrats are obviously appealing the ruling on a couple of different grounds. First of all, the state's convoluted election laws say that if anyone drops out, the fifth-place finisher moves up to fourth place and advances to the general election. But Hafner finished in sixth, not fifth, so they claim that the advancement is "unprecedented." Their other, likely stronger contention is that any candidate running for the seat must be a resident of the state on election day. But Hafner can't become a resident in time because he still has fifteen years to serve in prison in New York for threatening a series of politicians, police, judges, and attorneys in New Jersey while he was living outside the country.

Hafner was doing this as a stunt, perhaps as a way to alleviate the boredom of sitting in jail. That much seems obvious. He has already tried running for office twice in other states, never attracting more votes than a random pest might receive as a joke. But he doesn't appear ready to back down. He told reporters on a recent call (from the prison payphone) that he "fully expects" to be immediately released from prison if he wins the election because of "extraordinary circumstances."

Of course, Eric Hafner is in no danger of accidentally becoming the next Representative from Alaska. He didn't even garner one percent of the vote in the primary and his popularity is unlikely to surge at this point. But the race is still being seen as far closer than it should be in such a solidly red state. The Democrats can't afford to squander a single vote so they will no doubt expend every available bit of energy to keep him off. But if nothing else, perhaps this parody will finally convince the state's voters to return to a normal electoral process. This isn't a story of an American political contest. It's more like a Monty Python skit. All we're missing is the dead parrot. This ranked-choice voting scheme is a joke and it's turning Alaska into a laughing stock.