RALEIGH, NC — A judge in North Carolina refused to take a case Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s The names of the presidential election votes in the crucial state were announced Thursday, a day before the first batches of mail-in ballots for November are sent to registered voters who requested them.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt denied a temporary injunction Kennedy sought to prevent county election boards from distributing ballots with his name on them and to require them to be thrown out. State law requires that first-time mail ballots for the Nov. 5 election be mailed to applicants beginning Friday. An attorney for Kennedy said he would appeal the ruling, and Holt gave him 24 hours, meaning counties likely won’t start mailing out ballots as soon as Friday morning.
Kennedy appeared on the ballot in July as the nominee of the new party We The People, founded by his supporters. The Electoral College gave the party official recognition after it had collected enough signatures from voters. But Kennedy suspended his campaign two weeks ago and supported Republican candidate Donald Trump. Since then, the environmental activist and author has sought to have his name removed from ballots in several states where the race between Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is expected to be close.
In North Carolina, Kennedy and We The People of North Carolina wrote a letter to the board asking that his name be removed. But in a party-line vote on August 29, the Democratic members of the board voted rejected the party’s requestand called it impractical given the actions already taken to begin distributing ballots on September 6. Kennedy charged the next day.
North Carolina is slated to be the first state in the country to distribute fall election ballots. County election offices were expected to send mail ballots Friday to more than 125,000 voters in the state, the military and overseas who requested them. And more than 2.9 million mail ballots and in-person ballots had already been printed across the state as of Wednesday, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of state elections, said in a sworn statement.
The process of reprinting ballots without Kennedy’s name and reconstituting ballot applications would take at least two weeks, state attorneys said, threatening to miss a federal requirement that ballots be released to military and overseas voters by Sept. 21. But Kennedy attorney Phil Strach argued in court that Kennedy complied with state law by filing a written request to withdraw as a candidate, and that there is another law that allows the release of the ballot to be delayed under these circumstances. Otherwise, Kennedy’s free speech rights in the state constitution that force him to remain on the ballot against his will would be violated, Strach told Holt.
“This is a very straightforward matter about ballot integrity and compliance with the law,” Strach said, adding that keeping Kennedy on the ballot would cause confusion among voters who thought he was no longer a candidate.
But Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Carla Babb said the confusion would arise if the distribution of the ballots were delayed, potentially requiring the state to seek a waiver of the Sept. 21 federal deadline. State laws and regulations gave the election board the ability to reject Kennedy’s withdrawal based on whether it was practical to reprint the ballots, she said.
“Elections are not just a game, and states are not obligated to honor the whims of candidates for public office,” Babb told Holt.
Holt denied Kennedy’s request, saying that while the harm to Kennedy by remaining on the ballots would be minimal, the harm to the state board from such a move would be significant, such as reprinting ballots, which would impose significant costs on taxpayers.
While Kennedy was still an active candidate, the North Carolina Democratic Party unsuccessfully challenged the state board’s decision to certify We The People as a party in court.
Kennedy filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin on Wednesday seeking to have his name removed from the presidential ballot after the State Election Commission voted to hold him to it. Kennedy also filed a lawsuit in Michigan, but a judge ruled on tuesday that he should remain there on the ballot.
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This story has been corrected to show the name of the North Carolina District Attorney is Mary Carla Babb, not Carla Babb.
