PHOENIX, ARIZONA – AUGUST 23: Former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on August 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.Kennedy announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign and supporting Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump.(Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed an emergency request Monday seeking to have U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett issue an emergency injunction pending an appeal to the Court that would allow his name to be taken off the presidential ballot in Wisconsin.
Before Kennedy ended his third party presidential run late this summer and endorsed former President Donald Trump, he had filed the paperwork — which included the signatures of thousands of Wisconsin voters who wanted him to run — to get on the ballot. Later, he asked that the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) not include his name on the ticket, but the commission ruled that state law requires anyone who files the paperwork be placed on the ballot.
Kennedy sued to get his name removed in circuit court, lost and then lost appeals at the appellate and state Supreme Courts. Kennedy’s appeals were taking place right before absentee voting was set to begin, with county clerks across the state having already printed and begun mailing ballots with his name on them.
Attorneys for Kennedy pointed to a state statute that allows clerks to cover a candidate’s name with a sticker if that candidate dies before the election takes place and said Kennedy’s name on the ballots could be covered the same way. Election officials across the state warned that the voting machines used to count ballots haven’t been tested with stickers and that those stickers could cause the machines to break — both forcing election staff across the state to use a less accurate hand count of vote totals and local governments to cover the costs of repairing the machines.
In a brief filed during the state court proceedings, Kennedy’s attorneys said “it doesn’t matter” that their proposed solution could wreak havoc on the state’s election systems.
Kennedy’s lawsuits argue that state law discriminates against third party candidates for president by giving them less time between when the required paperwork is due and WEC finalizes the ballot to decide whether or not to run. He’s also argued that keeping him on the ballot violates his First Amendment right to endorse Trump.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against Kennedy’s efforts in late September. Weeks later, the day before early voting was set to start, he filed his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. As of Thursday morning, 810,626 absentee ballots with his name on them have already been mailed to voters, 592,902 of those ballots have already been returned and another 191,869 people have cast early votes.
At the same time that he has been working to get off the ballot in some states, including successfully in North Carolina, Kennedy has been suing to get on the ballot in others. A lawsuit to force his name onto the New York ballot was unsuccessful.
“It’s Robert F. Kennedy’s absolute right to endorse Donald Trump for President,” the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court states. “Over the past months, he’s done that in myriad ways, all over the country and especially in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, where Kennedy has appeared at rallies, spoken on television shows, and provided public endorsements whenever and wherever he could. In Wisconsin, he wants everyone who will listen to him to vote for Trump. That is core political speech and it’s protected under the First Amendment. To ensure that message is conveyed clearly and without confusion, he asked that his name not appear on the Wisconsin ballot. He wanted to be clear: his endorsement was for Trump.”
In the filing to the Supreme Court, Kennedy’s attorneys state that “the costs of administering a remedy would be minimal” even though more than a million ballots with his name on them have already been sent out or even filled out and returned.
In September, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take action in a similar case involving a third party presidential candidate. In that case, the Court refused Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s effort to get on the ballot in Nevada.