Robert F Kennedy Jr is suing North Carolina’s state board of elections after it refused to remove his name from the electoral ballot following his decision to drop his independent presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump.
The legal action comes after a series of ballot woes that initially impeded Kennedy’s campaign but are now threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end it.
Kennedy announced the suspension of his presidential bid on 23 August, saying he planned to remove his name from the ballot in 10 states, including vital swing states where his was presence was likely to damage Trump in knife-edge contests with Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues,” Kennedy told journalists when he announced his withdrawal in Phoenix, Arizona, last month.
He has since been enthusiastically embraced by Trump, who has appointed him to his transition team, despite concerns among conservative Republicans about Kennedy’s Democratic past and his support for abortion rights.
However, Kennedy’s request to remove his name in North Carolina – a key battleground where recent opinion surveys have shown Harris taking a small lead – was rejected by the state election board after it said around 1.7m ballot papers had already been printed and that producing new ones would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It would not be practical to reprint ballots that have already been printed and meet the state law deadline to start absentee voting,” the board said in a 29 August statement.
Sixty seven of the state’s 100 counties have already received their absentee mail-in ballots, meaning creating batches would create logistical problems, officials said. “When we talk about the printing a ballot we are not talking about … pressing ‘copy’ on a Xerox machine. This is a much more complex and layered process,” the election board’s executive director, Karen Brinson-Bell, said.
Board members split three to two along Democratic-Republican party lines in denying Kennedy’s request.
A lawsuit filed on his behalf claims that the decision has damaged his rights of free speech.
“By refusing to acknowledge Kennedy’s statutory rights and entitlements, defendants have irreparably harmed him,” the suit argued. “Even worse, by forcing Kennedy to remain on the ballot against his will, defendants are compelling speech in violation of [the US constitution].”
The dispute with North Carolina is mirrored in two other states seen as vital to the outcome of the 5 November election.
Kennedy has also been refused permission to remove his name from the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, where polls indicate his presence could help Harris at the expense of Trump.
In Michigan, Harris gains 0.1% with Kennedy’s name on the ballot, according to RealClearPolitics, which already gives her a 2.2% lead over Trump from recent polling averages. The same analysis sees her gaining 0.5% through Kennedy’s presence in Wisconsin, where she already has a one-point advantage in recent surveys.
Wisconsin – where Kennedy was nominated by the Natural Law Party – rejected his request to remove his name on 27 August, citing election law that states that only death could result in a candidate’s removal once nominated.
“Any person who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot may not decline nomination,” the state’s election law says. “The name of that person shall appear upon the ballot except in case of death of the person.”
Kennedy has successfully removed himself from the ballot in several other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.
His struggle to get off the ballot in some states has been mirrored by his difficulties in getting on in others, where his presence is unlikely to affect the outcome.
In New York, an appeals committee last week upheld a judge’s decision to exclude from the ballot on the grounds that he lived in California and that an address he filed as a state residence was that of a friend.
“This is not a situation where Kennedy erroneously listed a former residence in the nominating petition, but rather, Kennedy listed an address at which the record evidence reflects he has never resided,” the panel of judges wrote.
Ironically, Georgia – another battleground state where Kennedy’s presence could adversely affect Trump – recently ruled that he was “not qualified” to appear on the ballot because of doubts about his New York residence. The Georgia secretary of state’s office has said that Kennedy’s name “will not be appearing on the ballot in Georgia this election”.
