LANSING, Michigan — The highest courts in two states ruled differently Monday on the efforts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be removed from their presidential ballots, while the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in a divided manner that he should be omitted and the Michigan Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and kept him in office.
Kennedy suspended his campaign more than two weeks ago and supported Republican candidate Donald Trump. The environmental activist and author has sought to have his name removed from ballots in several swing states where the race between Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is expected to be close.
In Michigan, Kennedy filed a lawsuit on August 30 against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, seeking to have his name removed from the ballot to avoid stealing votes from Trump, who won Michigan by about 10,000 votes in 2016. Monday’s decision reverses a ruling by an intermediate appeals court that had been made FridayIt ensures that Kennedy’s name will appear on Michigan voters’ ballots despite his withdrawal from the race.
The Michigan Supreme Court held in a brief order that Kennedy “has not shown himself entitled to this extraordinary relief.”
In North Carolina, the Supreme Court voted 4-3 to reject an effort by the State Board of Elections to have the justices consider overturning the law. a ruling by the Court of Appeal on Friday who ordered that Kennedy be removed from the ballots. The appeals court had overturned a trial judge’s ruling the day before, which had upheld the State Board of Elections’ decision to keep Kennedy and running mate Nicole Shanahan on the ballot.
The Democratic majority on the electoral college had denied a request by North Carolina’s We The People party — a recently certified party that had come together to collect signatures for Kennedy’s candidacy — to remove Kennedy from the ballot. The board’s majority said it was impractical given the actions already taken to begin distributing the ballots, including printing and encoding counting machines. Kennedy charged the next day.
A state law required that first-time mail ballots be mailed or sent to voters who had already requested them no later than 60 days before the general election, or by Friday. Had it been done in time, North Carolina would have been the first state in the country to distribute ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling means state and county election officials will have to reprint ballots without Kennedy and reconstitute more than 130,000 mail ballots for those who already requested them. More than 2.9 million mail ballots and in-person ballots with Kennedy’s name on them had already been printed, the state board said. Counties will have to pay for the cost of reprinting.
Monday night’s ruling, which was supported by four of the court’s five Republican justices, said it was clear that Kennedy had withdrawn as a candidate and that a vote for him would not count.
State attorneys for the council have said it could take up to two weeks for the reprinted ballots to get out, threatening to violate a federal law that requires mail-in ballots to be sent by Sept. 21 to military personnel and voters abroad who have already requested them.
“We recognize that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require significant time and effort on the part of our election officials and significant expense to the state,” the order reads. “But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution requires us to pay to protect the fundamental right of voters to cast their own ballots and have their votes counted.”
The court’s two Democratic justices — Allison Riggs and Anita Earls — and Republican Justice Richard Dietz each wrote their own dissent. Riggs said Kennedy’s “whims” were “above the constitutional interests” of voters who wanted to cast ballots as soon as possible.
After Monday night’s order, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections, told county election officials not to mail out ballots until a statewide date is set. A possible waiver of the Sept. 21 federal deadline may be necessary, she wrote in an email.
On the Michigan Supreme Court, justices nominated by Democrats currently hold a 4-3 majority. That court’s order was unsigned, and two Republican-nominated justices wrote a dissenting opinion.
“We can only hope that the Minister’s misguided action – now approved with the approval of this Court – will have no national implications,” the dissenting judges wrote.
Kennedy was nominated for president by the Natural Law Party in Michigan. Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, had previously cited a state law that states that candidates who are nominated and accept the nomination of a minor party “may not withdraw.”
Angela Benander, a spokesperson for Benson’s office, said the department is grateful for the high court’s “quick response.”
“Clerks can now proceed with printing ballots to ensure mail-in ballots are delivered to voters before the federal deadline,” Benander said in a statement.
__
Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.