In a surprise reversal, the North Carolina Court of Appeals has ordered the state to stop printing ballots for mail-in voting, which were supposed to go out Friday, and to remove third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name from the ballot.
The order issued Friday also directs the state Board of Elections reprint ballots without RFK Jr., who had sought to be removed from North Carolina's ballot after he withdrew from the race and endorsed Trump.
The state board and a lower court had previously denied Kennedy’s request, saying it was too late and complicated to remove him from the ballot so close to the start of absentee by-mail voting.
The Democrat-controlled Board of Elections voted 3-2, along party lines, to keep RFK Jr. on the ballot. A Wake County judge upheld that decision Thursday, agreeing that it's simply too disruptive to take him off now. North Carolina law specified absentee ballots should be mailed out to those who request them starting Friday, so the appeals court ruling means that the state won't make that deadline.
The board can appeal the court’s ruling, but until it does so — or takes Kennedy’s name off the ballot — mail ballots won’t be distributed.
In a message to local elections boards, an attorney for the state elections board told them to hold onto their ballots and not send any via mail. The attorney said that a decision about an appeal hadn't been made.
Kennedy's fight to get off the ballot is a 180-degree turn from his struggle to get his North Carolina party, called We The People, onto the ballot. The party faced a skeptical state board, which initially delayed approving his petition for ballot access before granting it. Now, Kennedy's exit could bolster Trump, whose supporters worried that having his name on the ballot might siphon away voters who would otherwise go for the Republican.
It's been an active year for ballot fights and court interventions. A court ordered the Board of Elections last month to let left-wing academic Cornel West onto the ballot, after the board voted to deny his request for access because of questions over the roughly 14,000 signatures on his Justice for All party's petition.
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