The North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered that the name of former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must be removed from North Carolina’s November ballot.
Monday night’s ruling could help Republican Donald Trump’s chances against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in key battleground states and his chances in the national election.
Trump leads Harris by 0.1 percentage points in a one-on-one matchup in North Carolina, according to RealClearPolling’s most recent polling average. In a six-candidate race, Harris leads Trump in the state by 0.4 percentage points.
North Carolina awards 16 Electoral College votes to the winner of the presidential race, a total that can provide a winning margin in national elections.
this 4-3 decision The North Carolina high court’s ruling came hours after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled over Kennedy’s objection that Kennedy’s name must remain on the state’s ballot.
Kennedy, who supported Trump after suspending his bid for the White House on August 23, said he would remove his name from the ballot in states where Trump performed better in a head-to-head contest with Harris.
“Our polls consistently show that if I had stayed on the ballot in battleground states, I would have probably handed the election to the Democrats,” Kennedy said.
He has a pending lawsuit in Wisconsin, another swing state, seeking to have his name removed from the state’s ballot.
In those three states, Trump polled better in two-candidate races than in six-candidate races.
North Carolina’s decision on Monday upheld a state appeals court ruling in favor of Kennedy, who had challenged the state elections board because it felt it was too late for him. delete his name Ballots from there.
“If a ballot contains misleading information or inaccurately lists candidates, it risks interfering with a person’s right to vote his or her conscience,” Supreme Court Justice Trey Allen wrote in the majority opinion.
“If (Kennedy’s) name appears on the ballot, it could disenfranchise countless voters who mistakenly believe (he) is still a candidate for public office,” Allen, a Republican, wrote.
The ruling criticized the state Board of Elections, which “continued to print ballots containing Kennedy’s name despite being aware for nearly a week that (Kennedy) intended to withdraw his name from the ballot.”
“To a large extent, any harm the defendants suffer as a result of the Court of Appeals’ order is of their own doing,” Allen wrote.
The state Supreme Court’s ruling acknowledged that “expediting the process of printing new ballots will require significant time and effort from our election officials and impose substantial costs on the state.”
“But this is the price the North Carolina Constitution requires us to pay to protect voters’ fundamental right to vote according to their conscience and have their votes counted,” Allen wrote.
The Supreme Court’s two Democratic justices, Anita Earls and Allison Riggs, and Republican Justice Richard Dietz dissented.
“This decision creates tremendous hardship for our county board during an extremely busy time,” Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said in a statement about the court ruling.
“But our election officials are professionals, and I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge,” Bell said.
Under state law, election officials were scheduled to begin mailing out absentee ballots on Friday, but the process was halted by an appeals court ruling that day.
More than 2.9 million ballots have been printed.
In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, county election boards are now redesigning and reprinting ballots with Kennedy’s name on them, the state Board of Elections said in a statement Tuesday.
Election officials are unsure when absentee ballots will be mailed, but expect it to be done in the coming weeks, the statement said.
North Carolina officials are also in discussions with the U.S. Department of Defense in case they are unable to mail military and overseas ballots to voters by the Sept. 21 federal deadline.
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