Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remain on the ballot in battleground North Carolina, despite suspending his campaign last week. The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2, along party lines, in an emergency meeting on Thursday to deny a request from the We The People Party to remove its presidential candidates, Kennedy and running mate Nicole Shanahan, from the ballot.
North Carolina begins sending out absentee-by-mail ballots next Friday. The election board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, said during the emergency meeting that around 1.7 million ballots had already been printed or were in the process of being printed.
Democrats on the board argued that removing Kennedy from the ballot and starting over at this point would be “impractical” — and likely quite costly for counties. Brinson Bell noted that it could take vendors at least 12 days to proof and reprint ballots, with additional time required to prepare the absentee packets, pushing past the state’s September 6 deadline to begin sending ballots to voters.
The two Republicans, who voted in favor of granting the request to remove Kennedy, said they believed there was an exception that allows the board to delay that deadline.
It’s unclear how RFK Jr. dropping out will impact former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris at the polls, but Trump’s campaign is hoping that the independent dropping off ballots in key states and endorsing him will give him a boost in November.
