By ELYSE APEL | THE CENTER SQUARE and MUST READ ALASKA
The North Carolina State Board of Elections narrowly voted against a request to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the ballot, as has been requested. RFK Jr., formerly a Democrat, has suspended his campaign and has attempted to drop from swing state ballots, as he has now endorsed Donald Trump for president.
The board called the last-minute meeting on Thursday to consider removing the We the People party, which nominated Kennedy as its pick for the presidential election.
The meeting was heated, with the board split down party lines. Chairman Alan Hirsch, and members Jeff Carmon and Siobhan Millan, all Democrats, voted against striking Kennedy from the ballot, while Kevin Lewis and Stacy Eggers, both Republicans, voted to approve.
“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,” Millan said in the 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.”
The decision follows a summer of controversy for the board, which included multiple lawsuits and a federal investigation.
In early July, the We the People party was first denied access to the ballot, a decision that was later reversed on July 16.
Kennedy announced his decision to suspend his presidential campaign on Aug. 23, less than 24 hours after the Democratic National Convention wrapped. In the press conference, he blamed “shadowy DNC operatives” for fighting his campaign’s access to the ballot at every turn in states across the country.
On Wednesday, We the People party officially requested that Kennedy be removed from their ticket in North Carolina.
Democrats on the board cited the “impracticality” of reprinting ballots as a key factor in their decision; mail-in ballots are supposed to be sent out in the state starting Sept. 6 and many counties have begun printing.
“The decision was made for us when the party didn’t remove him weeks ago,” Carmon said.
The Sept. 6 deadline makes North Carolina one of the first states in the nation to send out its ballots.
Kennedy also can’t get off the ballots of Michigan and Wisconsin, also swing states, after Democrat election officials made the decision in those states. The strategy appears to be to split the Trump vote so he cannot win the states electoral college votes. Kennedy has not been taken off of Alaska’s November ballot, where he is listed as a candidate who got onto the ballot via petition.
Alaska will use ranked-choice voting in November. There are seven presidential tickets who will be listed on the Alaska ballot, including Harris/Walz, Trump/Vance, Kennedy/Shanahan, Chase/Mike ter, West/Abdullah, Stein/Ware, and Terry/Broden.
Elyse Apel is an apprentice reporter with The Center Square, covering Georgia and North Carolina. She is a 2024 graduate of Hillsdale College.
