Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to get onto NC’s ballot — and now he can’t get off

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must stay on the North Carolina ballot, despite requests from he and his new party We the People that he be removed.

The state Board of Elections voted along party lines to keep Kennedy on the ballot, with Democrats citing the state’s Sept. 6 deadline for absentee ballot mailing to begin, and the fact that most counties had started printing ballots.

Kennedy announced last Friday that he was suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump. He said he was going to take his name off the ballot in 10 battleground states. But his decision runs up against the deadlines in several states for dropping out.

The Kennedy campaign, through the We the People party, spent months trying to get him on the North Carolina ballot.

Thursday’s Board of Elections vote represented a turnabout in the consideration of Kennedy’s candidacy. The two Republican members who argued passionately this summer for Kennedy to be allowed on the ballot fought Thursday to take him off, and the three Democrats who were skeptical about letting him on in the first place voted to keep him.

“People are already printing their sample ballots,” said Board member Siobhan Millen, who was the only member to vote against certifying We the People as a political party. Party certification allowed Kennedy to appear on the ballot.

“The statutory deadline of Sept. 6 can’t be ignored just because of the capricious behavior of one party’s candidate — one party, one person,” she said. “I think this whole episode has been a farce. I feel bad for anyone who’s been deceived.”

State Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell told the board that 67 of the state’s 100 counties have received their absentee ballots, or will by the end of Thursday. Requests for absentee ballots is high, she said, and counties are preparing to start mailing them to voters next Friday, a date set by state law. The company that prints most ballots estimated that 80 of the 93 counties they work for had begun preparing ballots and election coding.

That single company has printed 1.73 million ballots, she said.

“When we talk about printing ballots, we’re not talking about pressing ‘copy’ on a Xerox machine,” Brinson Bell said.

Republican Board member Stacy “Four” Eggers IV questioned Brinson Bell’s instructions to county boards to continue printing ballots after Kennedy’s Friday afternoon news conference.

She defended her instructions to counties. She said she couldn’t advise counties to stop printing ballots at the risk of missing the Sept. 6 deadline based on a press conference.

“We knew of a press conference by Mr. Kennedy on Friday of last week. However, Mr. 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. So, I instructed the countries to continue with their proofing processes. I copied the Board on that,” she said. “Our staff and counties continue to work through the weekends as we would, so that we could meet the statutory deadline.”

Eggers said he received a copy of a letter Kennedy signed asking to be removed from the ballot. Kennedy’s wishes should be considered, he said.

Because Kennedy is a party nominee and not an independent candidate, he cannot remove himself.

Board member Jeff Carmon, a Democrat, said he would agree with Eggers if Kennedy wasn’t now acting as an independent when he fought to be recognized as the nominee of a party.

“Him acting as an independent and we taking that into consideration just goes against everything we’ve gone through for the past few weeks.

The We the People North Carolina executive board voted 4-1 on Wednesday request Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan be removed from the ballot.

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