RFK Jr.’s bid to take himself off swing state ballots may scramble mail-in voting

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be removed from ballots in Michigan and North Carolina, two key battleground states in the 2024 presidential election, after state appeals courts ruled in his favor on Friday.

The rulings have delayed the mailing of absentee ballots in North Carolina, and it may also affect mail-in voting in Michigan, where the deadline to send out ballots for military and overseas voters is Sept. 21.

The North Carolina appeals court said in a last-minute ruling on Friday that Kennedy’s name should be taken off the state ballot, blocking the state board of elections from distributing absentee ballots on the day it was supposed to begin doing so.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections quickly appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court but said it would begin coding new ballots without Kennedy’s name. More than 2.9 million ballots had already been printed with the former independent candidate’s name on it, the board said.

Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of North Carolina’s election board, previously estimated that it could take two weeks to reprint ballots at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, The Associated Press reported.

In Michigan, a state appeals court similarly ruled on Friday that Kennedy’s name should be stricken from the ballot, reversing a lower court’s earlier decision. Hours later, Secretary of State Joyce Benson, a Democrat, asked the Michigan Supreme Court for an emergency decision on the appeals court ruling. Ballots have not been printed in Michigan yet, and Benson has some leeway with the timing of the process given the state’s deadline.

After suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing Donald Trump in late August, Kennedy began the process of removing himself from the ballots in swing states — many of which he fought hard to get on in the first place — to avoid spoiling the vote for the Republican nominee.

With less than two months until Election Day, Kennedy’s ballot efforts have seen mixed results. But his court battles may end up throwing into disarray mail-in voting in several crucial battleground states. He also sued Wisconsin this week to remove his name from the ballot there.