North Carolina ordered to remove RFK Jr. from and reprint ballots

RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — A unanimous North Carolina Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the state Board of Elections to halt mailing out absentee ballots, remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name and reprint.

The legal delay all but guarantees the state will miss its ballot distribution deadline, which is Friday.

On Thursday, Kennedy’s attorney Phil Strach argued that Kennedy would be harmed if the ballots went out, and keeping his name on them would cause voter confusion.

Counsel for the elections board said the cost to reproof and reprint ballots would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and would take weeks. This would harm voters planning to vote absentee, while the impact on Kennedy would be minimal, they argued.

Mary Carla Babb, special deputy attorney general, said that the state may not even make the federal deadline — which for the 2024 election is Sept. 21 — if it is forced to reprint ballots.

Over 130,000 absentee ballots have already been requested and more than 12,000 of those are from military and overseas voters, the elections board said Thursday.

The board could appeal the case further. An email from counsel to county boards of elections sent this morning instructs directors not to mail out ballots, and that no decision has been made thus-far on determining how to move forward.

When Kennedy’s party, We the People, asked to be removed, 98 of North Carolina’s 100 counties had already finalized their ballots.

Friday’s decision the by appellate court reverses Judge Rebecca Holt’s finding that the harm to Kennedy is minimal, but requiring the state to reprint ballots would require significant cost and effort.

Kennedy originally fought to get on the ballot in North Carolina, but since suspending his campaign has urged voters to vote for former President Donald Trump. He has said that he plans to stay on the ballot in many states, but withdraw in states where his presence could divide Republican voters.

Babb noted in court Thursday that even as Kennedy claims he’ll suffer irreparable harm if he stays on the North Carolina ballot, he is still accepting campaign contributions and fighting to be on the ballot in New York.

If Kennedy is successful, his removal in North Carolina could help bolster votes for Trump. Currently, neither Trump nor Vice President Harris have a lead in the highly contested state, which Trump won in 2020 by less than 75,000 votes.

Elections in North Carolina are won by slim margins, but the Republican nominee has won nine of the last 10 presidential elections in North Carolina, with the exception being Barack Obama in 2008.

Democrats on the state Board of Elections originally opposed including Kennedy on the ballot, and local Republican lawmakers criticized them, saying they were trying to keep left-leaning votes from splitting between candidates, and were attempting to support the then-Joe Biden reelection campaign. Republicans wanted Kennedy on the ballot for similar reasons, to split up Democrat votes and increase their odds of Trump winning in the state.

Now, Republicans are opposed to keeping Kennedy on the ballot because he could secure right-leaning votes.

Kennedy lost his battle in Michigan, where a judge ruled this week that he must remain on the ballot. He’s also fighting against ballot inclusion in Wisconsin, where he has made similar claims that keeping him on the ballot would be compelled speech.

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