Kennedy sues NC elections officials to get name off ballots

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing North Carolina elections officials in his latest effort to get off state ballots in November.

In a lawsuit filed in Wake County late Friday, the third-party presidential candidate said the North Carolina State Board of Elections decision to reject his party’s request to remove him from the ballot violates elections and free-speech laws.

The Democratic-controlled board voted 3-2 along party lines during a special meeting Thursday to reject a request from Kennedy's We The People Party to remove him and running mate Nicole Shanahan.

Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign Aug. 23 and endorsed Republican former President Donald Trump.

Most of the state’s 100 counties had already begun printing ballots when Kennedy’s party formally asked elections officials on Wednesday to remove their nominee.

Democrats on the board said Thursday that it would be impractical to reprint ballots given that mail-in voting begins Sept. 6 in North Carolina. About 2 million ballots have been printed so far, officials said.

Republicans said the board had flexibility under the law to remove We The People and Kennedy from the ballot.

In his emergency lawsuit, Kennedy says he complied with the law and met the deadline to be removed from ballots. Kennedy alleged that the elections board knew of his desire to be removed the day he suspended his presidential bid — but directed county elections boards to print ballots anyway.

“NCSBE ignored controlling statutes and instead elected to insert their own indeterminate, subjective ‘practicality’ standard in denying his request,” Kennedy’s lawyers said in the lawsuit. “NCSBE cited no legal authority for its action.”

Pat Gannon, a spokesman for the elections board, referred questions about the lawsuit to lawyers at the state Departmnet of Justice. A DOJ spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.

As it stands, votes for Kennedy would be counted in the Nov. 5 general election, the state board says.

Kennedy is asking a judge to stop elections boards from printing ballots and to remove his name from those that have already been printed.

Kennedy’s fight to get off the ballot follows a protracted battle by his party to get him on in the first place. The Democratic Party sued the State Board of Elections last month, arguing that it wrongfully allowed ballot access to Kennedy. It argued that the We The People Party's effort to get on the ballot in North Carolina on Kennedy's behalf wasn't a good-faith effort and should be rejected. A judge ruled early this month that Kennedy could remain.

"It takes a lot of chutzpah ... to request the extraordinary relief of reprinting ballots," board member Shioban Millen, a Democrat, said Thursday during the board's meeting. "The statutory deadline of Sept. 6 can't be ignored just because of the capricious behavior of one party's candidate."

In addition to Kennedy and Trump, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Cornel West of the Justice For All Party, Randall Terry of the Constitution Party, Libertarian Chase Oliver and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are currently on the presidential ballot in North Carolina.

It requires far fewer signatures for a party to gain ballot access in North Carolina than for an individual, which informed Kennedy's path in the state.

Polling shows Kennedy was unlikely to make a huge difference in North Carolina, pulling support from Harris and Trump alike. But in a state where presidential elections are often decided on razor-thin margins — Trump won North Carolina by just over 1% of the vote in 2020 — even small shifts can be important.

Polls differ on how exactly Kennedy's presence on the ballot would impact Trump and Harris. In Thursday’s vote, the board’s three Democrats voted to keep Kennedy on the ballot, while the board's two Republicans wanted to remove the party from the North Carolina ballot.

A Focaldata poll earlier this month found an even tie between Trump and Harris if voters had only those choices, but Harris leading Trump by 3% of the vote if third-party candidates were also included. Kennedy got more votes than the rest of the third-party candidates combined, appearing to draw mostly from voters who'd otherwise support Trump.

A New York Times/Sienna College poll in mid-August found Harris leading Trump by 3 points in North Carolina in a head-to-head matchup, and also leading by 3 points if Kennedy and other third-party candidates were included.

In some recent high-quality polls, Kennedy was found to be drawing more votes from Harris than from Trump, according to The New York Times.

In early August, the Cook Political Report found Harris up by 2 points on Trump, if Kennedy were on the ballot, but leading by just 1% in a matchup of only Trump and Harris.