The Michigan Supreme Court on Monday ruled Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must stay on the state’s ballot even though he suspended his campaign.
RFK Jr. asked to be removed from ballots in ten key battleground states after he suspended his campaign last month.
In a Phoenix press conference last month, Robert Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed President Trump.
RFK will stay on the ballot in states where his presence will hurt Kamala, and he will remove himself from ballots in states where his presence hurts Trump.
“In about 10 battleground states, where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name. And I’ve already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me,” RFK Jr. said.
RFK Jr. is the nominee for the Natural Law Party in the state of Michigan.
“The Natural Law Party held their convention to select electors for [RFK Jr.]. They cannot meet at this point to select new electors since it’s past the primary,” a spox for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said.
Last week the Michigan Court of Appeals removed RFK Jr. from the ballot, but Jocelyn Benson did not give up the fight.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5 to 2 that RFK Jr. must remain on the state’s ballot.
Two of the justices blasted Jocelyn Benson in a dissent.
“The Secretary’s duty to maintain the integrity of Michigan elections includes an obligation to present actual candidates and associate them with the offices that they are seeking. By requiring Kennedy’s name to appear on the general election ballot, the Secretary of State is improperly and needlessly denying the electorate a choice between persons who are actual candidates willing to serve if elected. We can only hope that the Secretary’s misguided action—now sanctioned with the imprimatur of this Court—will not have national implications,” two justices wrote in a dissent, WXYZ reported.
WXYZ reported:
The Michigan Supreme Court in a 5 to 2 ruling has ordered that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be on the ballot in Michigan’s General Election in November.
The court found that under Michigan law, there is no duty for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to remove Kennedy from the ballot.
The court’s majority wrote, “Assuming, without deciding, that the Court of Appeals was correct in its interpretation of MCL 168.686a(4), plaintiff has neither pointed to any source of law that prescribes and defines a duty to withdraw a candidate’s name from the ballot nor demonstrated his clear legal right to performance of this specific duty, let alone identified a source of law written with “ ‘such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment.’ ” Thus, the plaintiff has not shown an entitlement to this extraordinary relief, and we reverse.”
