Alaska Democratic Party v. Beecher:
This case concerns a challenge to the Alaska Division of Elections’ inclusion of Eric Hafner — a federal prisoner in New York — as one of the four candidates on the 2024 general election ballot for the United States House of Representatives. Hafner finished in sixth place during the open primary under rankedchoice voting, but the Division elevated him to appear on the general election ballot after two of the top-four primary candidates timely withdrew. The Alaska Democratic Party and Anita Thorne, a registered Democrat (collectively ADP), argue that Hafner cannot be elevated to the general election ballot because Alaska law allows a single replacement for a withdrawn candidate: the fifth-place candidate in the primary election. The superior court rejected ADP’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief.
Due to the time-sensitive nature of election appeals, we affirmed the superior court in a short order dated September 12, 2024. We now explain our reasoning in full, holding that the laws establishing ranked-choice voting require successive replacements on the general election ballot if more than one top-four primary candidate timely withdraws and additional primary candidates are available as replacements.
The majority relied in part upon Alaska’s particularly strong use of the democracy canon.
From the single-justice dissent:
“Fifth” has a clear meaning — the one that comes after the fourth. And the statute fixes its application to “the candidate . . . in the primary election.” The “candidate who received the fifth most votes in the primary election” therefore clearly means the candidate who received the next highest number of votes in the primary election after the candidate who received the fourth highest number. I fail to see “the facial ambiguity in the statute”2 that the court identifies as the reason to undertake its circular journey through principles of statutory interpretation to arrive at its starting point of the ambiguity it posited. I respectfully dissent.