Alaska Supreme Court Will Hear Democratic Party Appeal on Whether Eric Hafner Should be on Ballot for U.S. House

Posted on by September 12, 2024

On September 11, the Alaska Supreme Court said it will hear the Democratic Party’s appeal in the lawsuit over whether Eric Hafner should be on the ballot for U.S. House. He is imprisoned and the Democratic Party argues if elected he could not serve, and therefore he cannot run.

The U.S. Constitution residency requirement for candidates for Congress is that the individual be a resident of the state “when elected.” This news story is flawed because it leaves out the phrase “when elected” when it quotes Article One.

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Alaska Supreme Court Will Hear Democratic Party Appeal on Whether Eric Hafner Should be on Ballot for U.S. House — 22 Comments

  2. To answer Term Limits NY, it would likely be that only 3 candidates would show up on the ballot for the at-large House race. Under Alaska’s new top 4 system, replacement of candidates on the general election ballot can only happen up until 64 days before the election.

  3. It depends on what the ruling says. At the oral argument on September 12, Democrats seemed to abandon their argument that Eric Hafner is not eligible. Instead they are trying to argue that although when one of the top-four finishers drops out, the fifth place then qualies, but only the fifth-place finisher can ever advance. In this case, the Democrats argue that even though two people in the top four dropped out, only one person can be added. So if Democrats win that, then there would only be three people on the ballot.

  4. https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-voids-controversial-constitutional-amendment-162000566.html

    Judge voids controversial constitutional amendment on Utah’s Nov. 5 ballot
    Katie McKellar

    Thu, September 12, 2024 at 12:20 PM EDT
    In a remarkable ruling issued Thursday morning — the second time in less than three months the courts have rebuked the Utah Legislature — a judge declared a controversial constitutional amendment question on the Nov. 5 ballot void.

    After hearing oral arguments less than 24 hours prior, 3rd District Court Judge Dianna Gibson sided with plaintiffs who have been in a years long legal battle alleging the Utah Legislature has engaged in unlawful gerrymandering and violated the Utah Constitution when it repealed and replaced Better Boundaries’ 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative that required lawmakers to use an independent redistricting commission.

    UTAH G HACKS FIGHTING TO THE END — LIKE HITLER IN HIS BUNKER IN APR 1945

  10. The district court said that Hafner was indispensable to the case.

    I don’t think he will be removed.

  12. I was wondering if the reference of the Nevada Certificate relates NRS 41.193 & NRS 41.195. This ran from Page 3, Line 23 to Page 4, Line 2 of the order of 11 September 2024.

  13. I note at page 33 from line 24 to page 34 at line 16, it goes to the Obama Birther Issue raised by Dr. Tate. “THE COURT: If he’s not a U.S.
    naturally born citizen, that not con-
    centrally possible then, right? MR. FOX: That correct. But someone who was a non-citizen who has never been to the United States, I suppose could file to and appear on Alaska’s ballot
    on the theory that they might somehow become a citizen in the next two months even though that is administratively not possible.
    THE COURT: No, I mean from the case– I don’t remember which one of the cases talked about, you know, it was Obama case, the Six Citcuit case. You couldn’t become a natural citizen and run for president, right? MR. FOX: I agree.”

  14. You might recall when California adopted Top 2 and there was a provision for a candidate replacement. What had happened was that the authors had simply copy-pasted from the election code for non-partisan offices. But in any event the California election code was amended in 2012 to prevent withdrawal of a Top 2 nominee.

    Alaska has had all kinds of shenanigans when they had partisan nominations for governor and lieutenant governor. When the Top 4 statute was being drafted, something had to be done to the withdrawal/vacancy in nomination language. The simplest fix was to move the next candidate up.

    A better system would be to:

    (1) Permit election in the primary if a candidate receives a majority.
    (1a) Pending a change in federal statute, at least two candidates will advance for federal offices.

    (2) If no majority, then candidates with a collective 80% of the vote will advance to the next round. The last qualifying candidate shall determine a threshold. The trailing candidates may coalesce their support to qualify additional candidates.

    (3) Candidates may withdraw, in which case their name will be removed from the ballot.

    (4) Repeat as necessary, write-ins permitted.

    For example, in the 2022 special for Representative the Top 7 with a cumulative 83.34% of the vote would advance. The last candidate had 3.86% of the vote. Conceivably the other 44 candidates with 16.67% of the vote could coalesce to advance four other candidates.

  15. JR
    NOOO PRIMARIES

    TOTAL VOTES / TOTAL MEMBERS = EQUAL VOTES TO ELECT — VIA PRE-ELECTION CANDIDATE RANK ORDER LISTS OF OTHER CANDIDATES TO MOVE WINNER SURPLUS AND LOSER VOTES

  16. IMO, the big flaw of all the top-x voting systems is that they deprive parties of control over who may, or may not, run with their label.

  17. @WZ,

    Why should states give private political organizations the privilege of mediating access to the ballot?

  18. @AZ,

    Does NOOO rhyme with gnu or know?

    If ‘primary’ bothers you call it the first round of a series of one or more rounds.

    Why do you have this fetish of shifting votes around?

  19. “Why should states give private political organizations the privilege of mediating access to the ballot?”

    Precisely because they ARE private organizations with associational rights. This was confirmed by Eu v San Francisco.

    Anyway, if they don’t own their own names, what DO they own? i have never suggested that anyone be barred from the ballot for their point of view. In fact, I am even willing to let presumably unqualified candidates run for office, and let the voters decide their fate. But they don’t have the right to assume a party label without that party’s permission.

  20. Are political parties _organizations_? You can associate with other individual voters in supporting an individual candidate.

    Let’s say you would like Bob Smith to be governor of your State. Can you contribute money? Sure. Can you display yard signs or bumper stickers? “Bob, Bob, is Our Smith”? Sure. Can you promote Smith to your friends, family, neighbors, total strangers, in person, letters to the editor, door hangers, social media? Sure. You are an individual associating with other individuals.

    Can you support Bob Smith in the most fundamental way – voting for him? NO, not if it is a party primary, and you are not affiliated with that party. And even if you can switch your affiliation to Smith’s party, you would not be able to vote for candidates affiliated with other parties.

  21. Bob Smith can run as an independent if that is a sufficient problem for him and the Bobheads or Smith Agents. Granted, there’s a ballot access barrier, but that goes away under SCS. More and more folks identify as independent and only vote D or R out of fearing and loathing one more than the other. Parties should control their labels. Candidates (so long as we have individual voting) should be free to dissociate from all parties. Neither should have steep barriers to election participation on equal qualifying terms.

  22. And yes political parties are organizations. They are literally a form of organization. They will still exist if their labels won’t be on the ballot. It would just help the bigger ones vs the smaller ones since the smaller ones are much more reliant on the ballot label to let a sufficient percentage of voters know who their candidates are.

    Without that label, outsider candidates have far less reason to run, since they lack the resources to let most voters know what they stand for, organize to support their campaigns, and carry over anything to subsequent elections where they may or may not run again.

    In top X States there are a lot fewer minor party and independent candidate even running any more for that reason.

    When they do run, they either get lost in the noise of multiple candidacies during the qualifying event (“primary”) long before most voters even start to pay attention , or her to run in the general election only where the winner is a foregone conclusion and no one else even bothers to file a candidacy, in which case they also get ignored.

    This is by design.

    Party labels communicate useful information to voters. See the Tennessee ballots with oodles of independent candidates – how many voters even recognize any of those names, much less identify what policy direction they might represent? Vanishingly few. The state might as well throw in a random page from the voter rolls to make the election falsely look more open and fair for all the good running does them or anyone else.

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