RFK wins bid to remove name from ballot in two swing states

Robert F Kennedy Jr has succeeded in having his name removed from ballots in two key swing states, a month after suspending his longshot presidential campaign and endorsing Donald Trump.

Appeals courts in Michigan and North Carolina just approved Mr Kennedy’s legal bids to strip his name from voting papers in those states.

But a judge in Wisconsin rejected Mr Kennedy’s latest attempt to remove his name from ballots in that state.

The rulings could make a difference in the tight race between Trump, a Republican, and Kamala Harris, a Democrat, for November’s White House election.

Trump celebrated Friday’s legal outcomes during remarks to a police officers’ union in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“So all of the Bobby people are going to vote for me,” he said.

Since he suspended his cash-strapped White House campaign in August as an independent candidate after his polling slumped to 5%, Mr Kennedy has been fighting to take his name off the ballot in key swing states, reversing months of laborious work to get his name on to the ballots.

It has already been determined that his name will not appear on ballots in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, three other potentially pivotal swing states.

On Friday, North Carolina’s Court of Appeals issued an order granting Mr Kennedy’s latest request.

The ruling landed hours before state election officials were about to post more than 132,000 absentee ballots.

The North Carolina Board of Elections alerted county election officials that the voting papers should not be sent out on Friday.

Election officials had argued that millions of ballots had already been printed and it would be too costly to make the change.

Under the ruling, ballots must be reprinted without Mr Kennedy’s name before they can be redistributed.

The case went to the appeals court a day after a county judge in North Carolina denied Mr Kennedy’s legal challenge.

In Michigan on Friday, an appeals court also ordered that Mr Kennedy’s name be removed.

Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had argued it was too late to change the ballots.

Her office said it planned to appeal against the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

But in Wisconsin, a county judge dealt a setback to Mr Kennedy, ruling that a full court hearing must be held before his name might be removed from ballots.

According to Wisconsin law, “any person who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot may not decline nomination”.

The judge set a hearing on the matter for 11 September, a week before absentee ballots are sent out.

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