RFK Jr. Gains Ballot Access In More States, Roadblocks In Others

Authored by Jeff Louderbeck via The Epoch Times,

As former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden prepare to receive their respective party’s nomination at their national conventions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is inching closer to getting on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

On July 10, Indiana county election officials announced they had certified around 39,000 petition signatures to place the independent candidate on the state’s general election ballot.

That same day, through the We the People Party, Mr. Kennedy said he turned in the required number of signatures to get on the ballot in Georgia.

The campaign also announced that the New York State Board of Elections determined the candidate submitted 108,680 valid signatures for ballot access in that state, more than double the 45,000 required.

On July 11, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign announced it had submitted enough signatures to gain ballot access in Colorado. The campaign turned in more than 30,000 signatures, more than double the 12,000 required, according to a statement.

Last week, the Libertarian Party of Colorado (LPCO) nominated Mr. Kennedy as its presidential candidate, though the national party selected Chase Oliver at its national convention in May.

“We hope to place RFK Jr. on two ballot lines in Colorado, where in the tradition of fusion voting, Coloradans will see him running as an Independent and with support from the Libertarian Party of Colorado,” LPCO Chair Hannah Goodman said in a statement.

The Kennedy–Shanahan ticket is officially on the ballot in nine states: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

The campaign has submitted signatures for ballot access in Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.

The ticket has also collected enough signatures for ballot access in Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Mr. Kennedy initially ran for the Democratic Party nomination. After encountering multiple roadblocks from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and claiming that the organization was “rigging the primary” to favor President Biden and prevent other candidates from competing, he chose to run as an independent in October 2023.

In January, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign announced that it had filed paperwork in six states to create the We The People political party. This move was made to get his name on the ballots with fewer voter signatures than those states require for unaffiliated candidates, reducing his overall signature requirement by about 330,000.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. meets with reporters after a voter rally in Holbrook, New York, on April 28, 2024. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

Mr. Kennedy has accepted nominations from third parties in some states.

In April, Mr. Kennedy qualified for ballot access in Michigan through the Natural Law Party before getting on the ballot in California with a nomination from the American Independent Party.

Mr. Kennedy qualified for the ballot in South Carolina through the Alliance Party on May 31.

He said on June 17 that he would appear on the ballot in Florida through the Reform Party of Florida.

The Reform Party was founded in 1995 by Ross Perot, who in 1992 ran as an independent and tallied 19 percent of the popular vote in a race won by then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton against President George H.W. Bush.

Legal Challenges

Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed concern that Mr. Kennedy could take away votes from their respective presidential candidates.

Earlier this year, the DNC announced the creation of a team to counter third-party and independent presidential candidates.

The committee hired Lis Smith, a veteran Democrat strategist who managed Pete Buttigieg’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, to spearhead a communication plan to counter the campaigns of Mr. Kennedy, independent Cornel West, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

Over the past two months, the DNC and Clear Choice, a super PAC aligned with President Biden to counter third-party presidential candidates, have objected to Mr. Kennedy’s appearance on the ballot with legal filings in four states, including the battlegrounds of Nevada and North Carolina.

“We knew that we would face legal challenge after legal challenge, so we are prepared,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times, calling the objections “frivolous and an attempt to keep Americans from having another choice.”

“Every case that we brought to court, we’ve won easily, and we will continue to win,” he said.

Problems in North Carolina, Nevada

The ballot access status of parties headlined by Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West remains undetermined after a July 9 meeting of the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE).

The NCSBE officially certified the Constitution Party to run candidates in the state’s November general elections, but it delayed action for an unspecified time on Mr. Kennedy’s We the People party and Mr. West’s Justice for All party.

It was the second time in less than a month that the panel didn’t vote to add We the People and Justice for All to the state general election ballot.

North Carolina election officials have confirmed that We the People surpassed the minimum of 13,865 valid signatures required to register as a political party for the 2024 general election.

Democrats on the elections board have cited concerns about how the party represented itself while circulating petitions and gathering signatures.

The board’s chairman, Alan Hirsch, said on July 9 that he wanted to give staff members enough time to complete their investigations into the signatures submitted by We the People and Justice for All.

The board will “meet again soon” to decide whether to recognize the parties, NCSBE spokesman Patrick Gannon said, noting that “there is still time” for the groups to get their candidates on the North Carolina general election ballot if they are certified.

In Nevada, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said in a statement last week that it had turned in the required signatures for the second time.

Earlier this year, Mr. Kennedy submitted more than 20,000 signatures in Nevada, around 10,000 more than the minimum to gain ballot access. Initially, the Secretary of State’s office approved the circulation of Mr. Kennedy’s nominating petition. In March, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said that the petitions were signed without the name of a vice president and were therefore invalid.

In December last year, Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times that ballot access laws for independent and third-party candidates are “among the worst forms of voter suppression in America today” and state officials should work together to “streamline and standardize ballot access procedures.”

Mr. Kennedy has said that he expects to attain full ballot access sometime this summer.

“Critics and pundits have doubted us since the beginning of our campaign and have said we won’t be able to get on the ballot,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We’ve proven them wrong in the most difficult states to gain ballot access, like California, New York, and Texas, and we’ll keep proving them wrong.”

Although he left the Democratic primary to run as an independent, Mr. Kennedy said in a July 11 post on social media platform X that “if the Democratic Party calls, sure, I’ll answer.

“The Democratic Party is scrambling around to find a candidate who can beat Donald Trump. They can stop looking. I’m the only one who can beat him.”