Appeals courts in North Carolina and Michigan ruled on Friday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name must be removed from state ballots for the upcoming presidential election, disrupting plans just as officials were preparing to mail the first absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals granted Kennedy’s request to halt the mailing of ballots with his name and ordered the State Board of Elections to issue new ballots without it. The decision did not provide a legal explanation.
Under state law, absentee ballots were required to be sent out by Friday, 60 days before the election. However, reprinting and assembling new ballots could take more than two weeks, according to state attorneys. The ruling may still face appeals.
Kennedy, the nominee of the We The People party, filed a lawsuit last week to remove his name from the ballot after suspending his campaign and endorsing Donald Trump. The Democratic-led State Board of Elections initially denied his request, citing the timing of ballot printing and tabulation machine coding. Kennedy responded by filing a lawsuit, but Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt denied his effort on Thursday, leading to his appeal.
In light of the ruling, election officials were instructed to hold off on sending absentee ballots. Over 132,500 absentee ballot requests have already been made in North Carolina, and more than 2.9 million ballots, both absentee and in-person, have been printed.
The Michigan Court of Appeals also ruled on Friday to remove Kennedy Jr.’s name from the state’s November ballot, following his request. The decision came after Kennedy appealed a lower court ruling that would have kept him on the ballot despite his withdrawal from the race and his endorsement of Republican Donald Trump.
In their ruling, the three-judge Court of Appeals panel explained that Kennedy’s request was made close to the deadline for election officials to finalize candidates but was not delayed enough to be rejected under the legal principle of laches, which can deny relief due to unnecessary delays.
The panel further clarified that Michigan law does not prohibit Kennedy from withdrawing his candidacy, stating that “the absence of any statutory authority prohibiting his withdrawal gave plaintiff a clear legal right to have his name removed from the ballot.”
The decision was issued by judges Michael Gadola, Mark Cavanagh, and Mark Boonstra, who noted that while state election law restricts candidates for state offices from withdrawing, it does not impose the same restrictions on presidential candidates.
Kennedy is also pursuing similar legal actions in Wisconsin.
