In one of their latest tangled emails asking for money, the Alaska Democratic Party says that Nick Begich, a Republican, is cheating because the Alaska Supreme Court won’t let the Democrats remove a Democrat from the congressional race so Mary Peltola can win reelection to Congress.
Their email implies that the current voting system is broken because it was so easily gamed. But it also says readers should send them money so they can keep the voting system. They want people to vote against Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal the ranked-choice voting system that put their felon on the ballot in the first place. It’s a logic that is hard to follow.
The Democrats are conflicted. On the one hand, they claim that ranked-choice voting is essential. On the other hand, they say it’s not fair that Eric Hafner is on the ballot due to their preferred primary. After all, he is a violent Democrat who is serving time in federal prison.
“Fourth and fifth place Primary finishers Nancy Dahlstrom and Matthew Salisbury dropped out of the U.S. House of Representatives race after an orchestrated effort by two-time loser Republican Nick Begich. Thanks to Nick’s scheming, Eric Hafner – who is running from a New York prison cell as a Democrat in a state he has never even set foot in – will now appear on the ballot this November,” the Democrats wrote in their email, as they projected their cheating and felon candidate onto Republicans.
But then they ask Alaskans for money so they can keep the system that they admit has been hacked by their own party.
“Help us keep this seat out of the hands of Republican extremists and outsiders who aren’t even from Alaska,” the Democrats say, with a link for donors. It’s not so much that Hafner is a felon, but that he is from Outside the state, they are saying.
In 2022, Democrats schemed to push Al Gross off the ballot so Mary Peltola could have a chance. But this year they ignored the threat coming from Democrat Eric Hafner, who says if he is elected, he might get released from prison early so he can serve. They didn’t think he would ever make the final four ballot in November.
The general election is 47 days from Thursday, Sept. 19.
