SCOTUS Forces RFK Jr. To Remain On Ballot In WI And MI

Democrats took painstaking efforts to kick Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off the presidential ballot when they thought his presence would hurt Vice President Kamala Harris. But after Kennedy dropped out of the race in key swing states and endorsed former President Donald Trump, Democrats in Michigan and Wisconsin fought to keep Kennedy on the ballot despite his objections. And on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kennedy’s emergency appeal to have his name removed from the ballots in those states.

Kennedy‘s emergency appeal to the high court to have his name removed from the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin argued that keeping him on the ballot was a violation of his First Amendment right. But the Supreme Court rejected the appeal on Tuesday without any reason.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5 to 1 in September to keep Kennedy on the ballot, arguing that state law prohibits the removal of a presidential nominee from the ballot unless the candidate dies.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson originally refused to remove Kennedy from the ballot, arguing that the third party under which Kennedy was running wouldn’t be able to nominate another candidate before the election. The Michigan Supreme Court and 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Benson.

Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented Tuesday in the Michigan case, arguing that lower court judges had thought the timing “of Kennedy’s original request to be removed wasn’t so unreasonable that it should be denied,” as reported by The Associated Press.

Despite Benson’s refusal to remove Kennedy from the ballot, she had no problem kicking third-party candidate Cornel West off the ballot in Michigan after a challenge to his paperwork. And in Wisconsin, Green Party candidate Jill Stein was nearly booted off the ballot after the Democratic National Committee filed a petition to disqualify Stein , arguing that since there were no Green Party members in state offices or the legislature there would be no one to nominate presidential electors. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the petition in a 4-3 vote.

But lawfare efforts to kick third-party candidates off the ballot, or in Kennedy’s case, keep him on the ballot, are politically motivated to help Harris.

In Wisconsin, Stein siphoned more votes away from Hillary Clinton in 2016 than the margin by which Clinton lost to Trump.

And in Michigan, Benson and the left understands that keeping Kennedy on the ballot — as opposed to other third party candidates — could siphon votes away from Trump, boosting Harris’ chances of victory.

“…[I]n a race this close, every swing-state vote matters. So, if those who would vote for Trump in a two-way race pull the lever for Kennedy’s ghost ship of a campaign, Democrats will gladly take it,” Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way, told The Hill

Harris leads Trump in Michigan by 0.5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics average. Trump leads Harris by 0.6 percentage points in Wisconsin in RealClearPolitics average.

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