Democrats suffered yet another defeat in their attempt to keep one of their own from appearing on Alaska’s Nov. 5 general ballot.

On Sept. 12, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling which affirmed that an incarcerated New Jersey inmate has every right to be on the ballot in the upcoming contest for Alaska’s lone U.S. Congressional seat. The justices voted 4-1, with Justice Susan Carney opposed.

Thanks to Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system and non-partisan “jungle primary,” Democrat Eric Hafner will now be among the ballot choices, despite the fact he is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in New York state for calling in false bomb alerts and sending threatening messages to various police officers, judges and lawyers.

Democrats are worried that Hafner might siphon off votes from their preferred candidate, U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who is in a razor tight race against Republican Nick Begich.

Democrats can only blame themselves for the fact that inmate Hafner’s spot on the ballot is secure. He wouldn’t be there if not for the Democratic-supported ranked-choice voting system.

In 2020, voters narrowly approved a RCV ballot measure, which did away with traditional party primaries – a key tool to weed out candidates like Hafner. Democrats and myriad leftist political groups have since championed RCV as a model voting system, and millions of dollars in outside money is currently being spent to convince Alaskans not to do away with RCV in November.

Prior to RCV, however, Democrats would have been able to hold a traditional party primary, wherein voters would have decided their top candidate to run on the general election ballot. That would have provided ample opportunity to remove Hafner from the ballot. That is no longer possible under RCV and the new jungle primary.

Hafner finished in sixth place during last month’s Aug. 20 primary, in which the top four vote getters automatically advance to the general election. But since two of the top four candidates – Republicans Nancy Dahlstrom and Matthew Salisbury – dropped out after the primary, Hafner has been bumped up two spots into fourth place. Now, instead of multiple Republicans on the general election ballot, there are two Democrats, Alaska Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe, and lone Republican Nick Begich.

Democrats may now find it much harder to convince their members to vote against Ballot Measure 2 on Nov. 5. If it passes RCV and jungle primaries will be repealed, and Alaska will return to its traditional election system.

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