NORTH CAROLINA — It’s been a storied few months to get We the People and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the North Carolina ballot this election year, with a new chapter unfolding Thursday.
READ MORE: Judge sides with voters to allow Cornel West, Justice for All party ballot access in NC
At the state board of election’s emergency meeting, some members were in favor of removing RFK Jr.’s name from the ballot, after he announced on Aug. 23 he was stepping down from his presidential run. But not enough to keep him off.
The Democratic-heavy, five-member board took a 3-2 vote, down party lines, determining Kennedy’s name and We the People party will remain on the ballots. It came down to practicality of reprinting ballots already in production.
Nearly 70 of 100 counties will have absentee ballots by the end of Thursday, according to the state board staff. Reprinting new ballots would be costly and can take up to two weeks to correct, as it not only includes printing ballots but dealing with complete reproofing at both state and county levels, plus election coding.
More so, absentee ballots must be to the county boards in eight days at latest, to meet the Sept. 6 deadline, mandated by law.
“This is a significant hurdle,” North Carolina State Board of Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell said at the meeting, adding absentee ballot voting is escalating in popularity.
On Friday, Kennedy threw his support behind GOP candidate and former President Donald Trump instead of continuing his own commander-in-chief run.
“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues,” Kennedy said from an Arizona press conference.
270 to Win polling showed an average of five polls had Kennedy securing 3.8% of the vote, with Harris and Trump less than one percentage point apart.
The Kennedy campaign noted it would request RFK Jr. and his running mate Nichole Shanahan’s names be removed from 10 swing states. Many have complied, including Florida and Nevada — the latter which received a court order Tuesday for RFK Jr.’s removal.
In Arizona, Kennedy filed removal paperwork a day before withdrawing from his presidential campaign.
Michigan — where Kennedy was endorsed by the Natural Law Party — and Wisconsin won’t comply, as those state laws indicate a candidate must die in order to be removed from a ballot.
Kennedy has approached his presidential run in multiple ways nationwide; in some states, he registered as an independent, others as being affiliated with a party. In North Carolina his candidacy was part of the We the People party.
At the North Carolina State Board of Elections meeting, Bell said they didn’t receive the official party’s request to remove Kennedy until Wednesday. However, she expressed to the board it would be costly to reprint ballots at this point — in the six-figure range.
“Has the candidate asked to reimburse for printing the ballots?” Democratic board member Siobhan Millen asked.
The answer was no.
Roughly 1.7 million ballots had been printed in more than half of the counties.
“Given the fact that we have a short deadline to turn these around, the amount of ballots that’s been printed, the cost that local counties would incur to reprint the ballots — with all those things in mind I move that he remain on the ballot,” Democratic board member Jeff Carmon said.
Fellow Republican board member Stacy “Four” Eggers IV questioned the board of elections’ decision to continue with the ballot printing after the candidate’s Friday announcement. He cited a letter received by RFK Jr.’s lawyers and sent to staff on Monday evening regarding the candidate’s removal.
“Kennedy did not file as an unaffiliated candidate and we had not heard of a decision from the We the People party based upon his press conference,” Bell explained, adding she informed county boards to continue forth on the printing process. “I copied the Board on that.”
Board members noted Kennedy should not be able to remove himself from the North Carolina ballot unilaterally, as he decided to run as endorsed by a party and not as an independent candidate. The executive board of We the People had to execute a vote first for Kennedy’s removal and did so Wednesday, resulting in a 4-1 outcome.
Republican board member Kevin Lewis put a motion forth to the state board of elections Thursday to allow We the People to withdraw their candidate, seconded by Eggers. It failed, 3-2.
“Next time you call for flexibility in the statute,” Lewis said, “know it’s situational flexibility.”
He was referring to the delay the board endured earlier in the spring to vote on certifying We the People for Kennedy to gain ballot access. By comparison, he questioned why they wouldn’t permit wiggle room on time to redo ballots to properly reflect RFK Jr.’s withdrawal.
Lewis thought the board had the statutory authority to remove the candidate and move the deadlines for absentee ballots to be mailed. General Statute 163-22(k) gives the state board the authority to decide when to mail absentee ballots “if they are not ready by” the statutory deadline, which is 60 days before the general election.
The battle between the party, Kennedy and the board began earlier this year, when the board questioned the veracity of the We the People’s signatures to gain ballot access. North Carolina state law mandates unaffiliated candidates need more than 80,000 signatures, which were due by March 5, whereas parties only had to meet over 13,800 signatures by June 1.
The board received flack for playing politics as to not deflect votes from the Democratic Party. We the People and Kennedy cited issues with the parties continuing to allow a duopoly to control election outcomes.
After a few meetings, eventually the board voted in favor, 4-1 (Millen dissenting). However, the matter then went before a judge after the state Democratic Party sued the state board of elections, claiming RFK Jr. skirted election laws by going the party route over the independent candidate route.
Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory, a Democrat, disagreed with the party’s assertions and noted We the People followed statute and got the amount of signatures needed. He allowed the state board’s vote to stand.
Carmen’s motion to keep Kennedy on the ballot at the state board’s emergency meeting Thursday passed.
“I think this whole episode has been a farce,” Millen said. “I feel bad for anyone who’s been deceived.”
Even if voters check Kennedy’s name during early voting or on Election Day, Nov. 5, the vote will not count.
Catch up on previous PCD coverage regarding RFK and North Carolina ballot access here:
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