After weeks of back-and-forth litigation, absentee ballots in North Carolina are delayed by two weeks, following Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s fight to remove his name from the North Carolina ballot. The change will cost Forsyth County $16,000.
Kennedy is no stranger to the headlines of this election cycle. After a failed presidential campaign, Kennedy has since endorsed the Republican Party nominee — former president Donald Trump — and started a fight to remove his name from the ballots in battleground states, including North Carolina. However, he sought to stay on others — like New York.
Kennedy sued the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) in late August, requesting that the We the People Party, of which he is the Presidential nominee, be removed from all North Carolina ballots. That was only one month after the state board voted to allow him on. After a 4-3 ruling in the North Carolina Supreme Court by the court’s conservative majority, he was allowed to remove his name. By the ruling date, Sept. 6, the NCSBE had printed 2.9 million individual ballots statewide for the upcoming 2024 election.
The cost of reprinting ballots has been put onto counties. Tim Tsujii, the Elections Director for Forsyth County, reported that Forsyth County footed the bill — spending $16,000 on reprinting costs. The county had already printed 64,800 ballots, printing 3,400 new ballots in-house. 61,400 ballots had to be reprinted by a paid company.
“We will continue to consult with counties and ballot vendors to determine the feasible start date for distributing absentee ballots statewide, mindful of the goal to meet the 45-day federal deadline,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, in a press release on Sept. 10. “This decision imposes a tremendous hardship on our county boards, at an extremely busy time. But our election officials are professionals, and I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge.”
The absentee ballots were set to be sent out by Sept. 6, but have now been delayed to Sept. 24. Military absentee ballots were sent out on Sept. 20.
Kennedy’s case was originally denied by the Democratic Majority in the NCSBE, citing that it was too late in the printing process. On appeal, a three-judge panel in the N.C. Court of Appeals permitted Kennedy to halt the ballots. Following another appeal, on Sept. 6, the four-judge Republican Majority in the N.C. Supreme Court decided in favor of Kennedy, delaying the absentee ballot deadline.
The state Supreme Court said Kennedy remaining on the ballot “could disenfranchise countless voters who mistakenly believe that [the] plaintiff remains a candidate for office.” Before the re-printing, only seven absentee ballots had been requested for the We the People party.
