Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Macomb County Community College on Oct. 5, 2023 | Ken Coleman
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remain on Michigan ballots after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request to be removed from November ballots.
Kennedy pursued multiple state courts to have his name removed from ballots in key battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin, having his requests for both states ultimately denied by the Supreme Court Tuesday.
More than 2 million people have voted as of Wednesday morning in Michigan whether that be through absentee ballots or early in-person voting, according to the Secretary of State’s election dashboard.
Kennedy poses a threat to Former President Donald Trump’s path to victory in Michigan where the race between he and Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to be close. Kennedy had previously been running as an independent candidate, nominated by the Natural Law Party, but dropped out of the race in August, throwing his support behind Trump.
Since ending his campaign, Kennedy has opened legal battles in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin to have his name removed from ballots.
Kennedy’s request to the U.S. Supreme Court reasoned that Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, had every authority to remove Kennedy’s name from the ballot, but instead she kept a candidate no longer in the running on the ballot.
“Allowing Secretary Benson’s unlawful conduct to stand without any recourse not only has dire consequences related to the November 2024 election, but also opens the floodgates for Secretaries of State across the United States to have unfettered authority to violate the law,” Kennedy’s filing reads.
The filing from the Michigan attorney general and other parties in response to Kennedy’s filing state’s that Kennedy’s “late stage” requests to alter the state’s ballots pose public harm and Kennedy himself doesn’t have suggestions on how a change of ballots would’ve been possible amidst Michigan’s high turnout for early voting.
“And while it cannot be known for certain yet, of the thousands of Michigan voters who have already voted, they surely include citizens who cast their ballot for Applicant Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as the presidential nominee of Michigan’s Natural Law Party,” the responding filing reads. “And surely there are many more voters who intend to do the same in the 8 days remaining before the November 5 election. These voters likely do not consider their votes for Kennedy to be frivolous or deserving of less protection than votes cast for a major party candidate.”
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