Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ’s push to gain ballot access in North Carolina was blocked by three Democrats on the state’s election board.
North Carolina State Board of Elections Chairman Alan Hirsch, along with members Jeff Carmon and Siobhan O’Duffy Millen, voted Wednesday to deny Kennedy’s We the People Party access to the state's presidential ballot. A recording of the Election Board’s meeting obtained by the Washington Examiner showed the Democrats were “concerned about what people were told as they were thinking about signing the petition.”
A spokesman for Karen Bell, the election board's executive director, told the Washington Examiner the board will convene again on July 9 to reconsider granting the third-party candidates access to the state ballot. In the meantime, the agency will “further review the sufficiency of the new party petitions” to make sure “the petitions have complied with the legal requirements.”
During the election board meeting, Democrats told Kennedy campaign representative Cearah Foley that they were worried people signing the ballot petition could be confused because it states the intention both of “creating a party” and “nominating candidates.”
Kevin Lewis, a Republican on the board, responded to his colleagues' apparent perplexity: “What do you a call a candidate who is running for president before a party is formed?”
The petition in question reads: “I was a signer of a petition to create a new political party in North Carolina called ‘We the people.' I understood the objective of the petition was to create a new political party called ‘We the People.’ It was communicated to me that the party’s general purpose and intent includes creating an independent third party outside the duolopy, i.e. Republicans and Democrats, and nominating candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and those committed to the party’s core values.”
Millen criticized the petition as failing to declare a specific purpose of intent, claiming that what people were attesting to was “pretty short.”
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Top GOP officials believe Democrats' act to block Kennedy's ballot access in North Carolina was politically motivated. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said President Joe Biden's campaign is threatened by Kennedy’s candidacy, as polls show the independent stealing voters from the Democratic Party. In a recent New York Times poll, Kennedy drew 8% of Biden’s 2020 supporters, while his inclusion on the ticket in swing states Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona, is expanding Trump’s lead over Biden by 2 percentage points. The independent candidate attracted 10% of voters across battleground states in another survey. Whatley claimed the Democratic-controlled North Carolina election board is “flouting the electoral process” in the state in an attempt to “hold onto political power.”
The North Carolina GOP agreed, calling the election board’s decision “a disgusting abuse of process that has yet again only served to protect Democrats at the expense of North Carolina voters.”
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