The lawsuit alleges that the state’s withdrawal deadlines unfairly favor major party candidates.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing to remove himself from the Wisconsin presidential ballot after the battleground state’s election commission voted to keep him on it.
In the lawsuit, filed Sept. 3 in Dane County Circuit Court, attorneys for Kennedy accused the elections commission of discriminating against him over the ballot withdrawal request.
Specifically, Kennedy claimed that independent candidates like himself are subjected to different withdrawal deadlines than major party candidates such as President Joe Biden, who on July 21 ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“While Biden had until today at 5 p.m., Kennedy had to let the Commission know a full month before that,” the brief read. “Why the different playbook for Kennedy as opposed to Biden?”
Campaign Suspended
Kennedy suspended his campaign on Aug. 23 and endorsed the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. He is now part of Trump’s presidential transition team.
Since then, Kennedy has sent requests to get his name off the ballots in seven closely contested states and three others that he considers competitive.
“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues,” Kennedy said in a speech. He also encouraged supporters to still vote for him in states where they are unlikely to affect the outcome.
Kennedy’s attorneys disagreed that candidates must be kept on the ballot unless they die, arguing that the state has no compelling interest to enforce such a requirement.
“Kennedy simply wants off the ballot, there is no rigorous testing of a candidates bona fides when they want off the ballot—you simply do not include his name,” they told the court. “We’re simply asking to not be put on the ballot, as opposed to getting on it.”
The Wisconsin Elections Commission declined to comment on the lawsuit.
For now, Kennedy remains a presidential candidate on the ballot in Wisconsin, alongside the Green Party’s Jill Stein and fellow independents Cornel West and Shiva Ayyadurai. His lawsuit could have complications, since the county clerks have already been authorized to print ballots to meet upcoming state deadlines for mailing absentee ballots to military and overseas voters.
Wisconsin is considered one of the most pivotal states in this year’s race for the White House. Recent elections have shown that even a modestly successful third-party bid can significantly influence who secures the state’s 10 electoral votes.
Stein was last on the Wisconsin ballot in 2016, when she secured more than 31,000 votes, more than Trump’s winning margin of just under 23,000 votes. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin in 2020 by an even thinner margin of fewer than 21,000 votes.
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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