RALEIGH, NC — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can remain on North Carolina’s presidential ballot after a state judge refused Monday to block his name and the names of other candidates from the We the People party, which was recently recognized by the state’s election commission.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory denied a request for a temporary restraining order filed by the North Carolina Democratic Party, which challenged the panel’s decision last month to declare “We the People” the official party.
Separately, late Monday, a federal judge halted the panel’s rejection of official party status for another political group, Justice for All, which had been collecting signatures to put progressive activist and professor Cornel West on the presidential ballot. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle ordered the panel to declare Justice for All of North Carolina an official party and allow its candidates to run on the fall ballot.
The committee voted 4-1 to include We the People, which Kennedy’s supporters used to get the environmentalist and author on the ballot in some states. Kennedy otherwise runs as an independent politician nationwide. The decision was made after a New York judge ruled against Kennedy’s inclusion on the ballot because he lives in California.
The panel’s staff most recently determined that We The People organizers submitted enough valid signatures from registered and qualified voters to exceed the minimum number of petitions set by state law, which currently stands at 13,865. Petition collectors must also inform signers of the general purpose and intent of the proposed party.
Attorneys for We the People and the state said the board issued the certification properly and in accordance with rules approved by the General Assembly.
“You simply asked this court to look at the law and you said the Council of State did not violate it,” Gregory told prosecutor Terence Steed at the end of the nearly two-hour hearing. “I agree.”
The state Democratic Party filed a complaint seeking to overturn the panel’s decision, accusing Kennedy’s campaign of using the “We the People” vehicle to circumvent the stricter requirements that state law places on independent candidates to get on the ballot: collecting six times as many signatures.
Two Democrats on the panel joined the two Republicans in granting We the People official party status on July 16. But even one of those two Democrats, Chairman Alan Hirsch, called We the People’s efforts “a sham” at the time and said the matter was ripe for litigation.
Ray Bennett, a lawyer representing Democrats in the case, pointed to We the People’s petition instructions in court, which say the party’s purpose is simply to create a new party to put Kennedy on the ballot. That is impermissible, Bennett said, and would otherwise cause all independent candidates to prefer the political party’s easier signature process.
But Steed and Oliver Hall, a lawyer representing We the People, said the certification law does not contain a test that the election board must use to decide whether a new party’s purpose is acceptable – rather, there simply must be one.
Hall also said that removing “We the People” from the ballot would be an extraordinary step and a violation of voters’ First Amendment rights.
A spokesman for the state Democratic Party did not respond to an email seeking comment on Gregory’s ruling Monday. The judge plans to issue a written decision later, and it can be appealed.
Democratic lawyers had urged Gregory to act by the end of the week, as state election officials have said they need all of the candidates’ names by then in order to print ballots for the fall.
Democrats fear that Kennedy still has enough appeal as a left-leaning star to steal voters from their presidential candidate. Biden was set to become president until he withdrew his re-election bid last month. Vice President Kamala Harris has since won the nomination.
The Justice for All legal battle arose from the Democratic majority on the board’s rejection of the group’s application for official party status in a 3-2 vote.
Panel staff said more than 17,000 signatures were received for Justice for All. But Democratic members of the panel questioned how most of the submitted signatures were collected, including signatures sought by an outside organization called People Over Party. Panel staff said dozens of voters whose names were on the signature list said they did not sign the petition or did not know what it was for. And the panel said potentially fraudulent signatures were being investigated.
Boyle ruled that the committee went too far in rejecting the entire petition request. He said the People Over Party had provided documents showing how it complied with the petition law. As for the fraud allegations, the committee could have simply removed the signatures from the precincts where many reports came from and subtracted them from the total.
“The Board effectively disenfranchised over 17,000 North Carolina voters who signed petitions to recognize the JFA as a new political party, on a flawed and highly questionable basis,” Boyle wrote, explaining that the plaintiffs would likely win their First Amendment claims in court. Boyle’s ruling is also subject to appeal.
Kennedy’s campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in 17 states and signatures have been submitted in 23 more. The West campaign has said it has secured ballot approval in 14 more states, but acknowledged that some approvals are still pending.
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