Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing the North Carolina election board to have his name removed from the 2024 presidential election ballot after it originally denied his request last Thursday.
The lawsuit follows his decision to drop out of the race and endorse former President Donald Trump last month.
The ex-Independent candidate filed the suit in the Wake County Superior Court on Friday, stating that the board’s refusal to remove the We the People party, which nominated him, violated the state’s election law and his freedom of speech, according to the News & Observer.
Despite suing to get off of North Carolina’s ballot, a lawyer for Kennedy still asked a state appeals court to restore his place on New York’s ballot last Wednesday.
Before dropping out, Kennedy was locked in a fight to keep his name on the New York ballot after his residency in the state came under question. He was eventually barred from appearing on the ballot shortly before announcing his withdrawal from the race.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could have put his residence as the moon and no one would be confused with who Robert F. Kennedy is,” his lawyer, Jim Walden previously told an appeals court judge.
Kennedy also submitted his candidate filing in Oregon last Monday but is meanwhile withdrawing his name from other anticipated battleground states like Maine.
On Thursday, the North Carolina board’s Democrats outvoted its Republicans 3-2 to reject Kennedy’s request to be removed from the ballot. Of the state’s 100 counties, 67 have already begun printing ballots–nearly 1.7 million–to be sent out by Sept. 6.
“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,” Siobhan Millan, one of the Democrats who voted against Kennedy’s request, said during last Thursday’s meeting. “I’m just going to be real blunt and say I think this whole episode has been a farce, and I feel bad for anyone who’s been deceived.”
Ballot reprints would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.
Kennedy has consistently been polling at around 3% in North Carolina.
With Post wires.
