Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a lawsuit last Thursday against the North Carolina State Election Commission, which initially rejected his request, asking that his name be removed from the 2024 presidential ballot.
The lawsuit comes after he decided last month to drop out of the race and endorse former President Donald Trump.
The former independent candidate filed the lawsuit Friday in Wake County Superior Court, arguing that the commission's refusal to remove the “People's Party” that nominated him violates state election law and his free speech rights. News & Observer.
Despite the lawsuit to have him removed from the North Carolina ballot, Kennedy's lawyers last Wednesday asked a state appeals court to reinstate his seat on the New York state ballot.
Before dropping out, Kennedy had been fighting to keep his name on the New York ballot after questions arose about his residency in the state, and he was ultimately barred from appearing on the ballot just before announcing his withdrawal from the race.
“If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described his residence as the moon, nobody would be confused as to who Robert F. Kennedy is,” his lawyer, Jim Walden, previously told the appeals court judges.
Kennedy also filed for candidacy in Oregon on Monday, but has withdrawn from other battleground states, including Maine.
Democrats on the North Carolina state committee voted 3-2 against Republicans on Thursday to deny Kennedy's request to remove him from the ballot. Sixty-seven of the state's 100 counties have already begun printing ballots, about 1.7 million of which are scheduled to be sent out by Sept. 6.
“We cannot ignore the September 6th statutory deadline solely because of the whims of one candidate, one party, one person,” Siobhan Milan, one of the Democrats who voted against Kennedy's request, said at the meeting last Thursday. “Frankly, I think this whole thing has been a travesty, and I feel sorry for anyone who was duped.”
Reprinting the ballots would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, said Karen Brinson Bell, the board's executive director.
Kennedy has consistently Approximately 3% North Carolina.
With post wire.
