A North Carolina court has ruled that Robert Kennedy Jr’s name should be removed from the presidential ballot, which is a boost for Donald Trump in a tight swing state.
The court said that, had Kennedy’s name remained on the ballot, his supporters might still have voted for him without knowing that he was no longer a candidate. Kennedy dropped out of the race on August 23 and urged supporters to vote for Trump.
“If plaintiff’s name appears on the ballot, it could disenfranchise countless voters who mistakenly believe that plaintiff remains a candidate for office,” Supreme Court Justice Trey Allen noted in the court’s written ruling.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
Allen added that a lower court did not consider this when ruling that Kennedy could not remove his name from the ballot.
“The trial court did not appropriately weigh this consideration in its ruling, instead focusing on the minimal harm to plaintiff himself and the significant resources the State would need to expend to create an accurate ballot for this election,” the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled.
Any extra resources the state’s board of electors has to use up to change the ballot is largely its own fault, Allen added.
This was because it was continuing to print ballots that included Kennedy’s name “despite being on notice of [Kennedy’s] intention to withdraw his name from the ballot for nearly a week.”
“To a large extent, any harm suffered by defendants in light of the Court of Appeals’ order is of their own making,” Allen wrote.
“All previously printed ballots listing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s name should be destroyed, and the director of the State Board of Elections and the director of each county Board of Elections should be required to certify destruction of these invalid ballots to maintain public confidence in the upcoming election,” Allen said.
Newsweek sought email comment from Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s campaigns on Wednesday.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Anita Earls noted the difficulty of printing huge quantities of new ballots so close to the election.
“If this case seems like much ado about nothing, it bears considering that 2,348 different ballot styles are in use in this state for this election,” Earls said.
“That figure reflects all of the contests and referendums on which voters in North Carolina’s 100 counties have a say in November, from contests for the office of U.S. president to the local soil and water conservation district supervisor, and everything in between. More than 2,910,000 general election ballots have already been printed to facilitate our sacred exercise of the franchise,” she wrote.
Trump only has a 0.1 point lead over Kamala Harris in North Carolina in a two-candidate race, according to polling averages from RealClearPolling. When calculated for the four other lesser candidates who remain in the race, Harris leads Trump by 0.4 points; an illustration of the importance of minor candidates in the presidential race.
The North Carolina court’s 4-3 decision on Monday came on the same day that the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Kennedy’s name must remain on that state’s ballot, despite his objections.
Kennedy has vowed to remove his name from ballots in states where his absence improves Trump’s chances of victory.
He has lodged a lawsuit to have his name removed from the Wisconsin ballot also.