User:GRuban/Carol and Eric Hafner

Carol and Eric Hafner are American political activists, a mother and son, known for running in United States Congressional election contests from states they are not residents of. This is allowed by the Article One of the United States Constitution which only requires that Senators and Representatives be inhabitants of the state in which they are chosen after their election.

Eric Hafner

Eric Hafner was born in 1990 or 1991 (age 33–34) in New Jersey. He says he was politically active for other candidates for years, including volunteering for a Democratic presidential campaign when he was 13 years old, then two Republican candidates, Highlands, New Jersey mayor Anna Little's congressional campaign in 2010, and Ron Paul's presidential campaign in 2012. He says he was jailed when he was 16, and since then has been an advocate for drug legalization and criminal justice reform.

In 2016, Hafner ran in the Republican party primary for Hawaii's Second Congressional District. He gave his name as Rev. Dr. Eric Hafner, and his occupation as ordained minister, diplomatic adviser and legal consultant, with previous public service experience as medical cannabis policy adviser to Manalapan Township, New Jersey. His residence was listed either as Wailuku, Maui, or a post office box in Hilo, Hawaii. His platform included Hawaiian nationalism, medical cannabis advocacy, and criminal law reform. He came in second, with 5,876 votes, or 44 percent of the Republican primary (the eventual election winner, Tulsi Gabbard, picked up 80,026 votes in the corresponding Democratic party primary).

In 2018, Hafner ran in the Democratic party primary for the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Oregon's Third Congressional District. He was at the time a resident of Toms River, New Jersey, and had never been to the state of Oregon, the closest he had ever come being a trip to Northern California years before. However, he claimed to have the Portland, Oregon mentality, and said his strong New Jersey attitude would enable him to be a more effective advocate for Portland ideals. He ran his campaign from an undisclosed location in New Jersey, because of outstanding warrants for his arrest from Middletown and Freehold townships, for drug and contempt of court charges; he said he had been in hiding since 2013. To communicate, Hafner used Twitter, blocked telephone numbers, and an email account hosted in Switzerland. His campaign motto was "drop acid and vote Hafner for Congress", and his campaign promises included to "light up a joint on the House floor on 4/20". He came in fourth, with 1.5% of the Democratic primary vote.

Carol Hafner

Carol "Kitty" Hafner was born in 1953 or 1954 (age 70–71) She worked as a waitress while attending college, then served for years as a flight attendant. She also spent 14 years in higher education at Brookdale Community College.

In 2018, Carol Hafner ran in the Democratic primary for the US House of Representatives seat from Alaska. She had never been to Alaska, and listed two New Jersey and one South Dakota addresses in her election filing. She was registered as a Democrat in Toms River, New Jersey and a Republican in South Dakota. An Alaska Democratic party leader challenged her candidacy, noting that the New Jersey address matched that of Eric Hafner, who had stood for two previous Congressional offices, and worried that he was using her identity as a sock puppet account for the election. Carol Hafner explained that Eric was her son. In interviews, she said that she traveled frequently, currently residing in New York, and considered her Box Elder, South Dakota address, a mail drop for seniors with transient lifestyles, to be her home base. She said that her impetus to stand for office was Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the east coast of the United States in 2012, and left her, personally, with enduring health issues. So she was running to deal with the climate change that made such storms more frequent, and against Don Young, the incumbent Republican who had held the office for 45 years, and had called climate change a "scam". She got 5,351 votes to be the Democratic nominee, just under 14%, but did get first place in one district including Nome.