Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort to remove his name from Michigan’s presidential election ballot heads to federal court for a hearing Tuesday. Kennedy is trying to withdraw from Michigan and other battleground states after endorsing former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The state told Kennedy he missed the deadline to withdraw and also that he cannot leave the Natural Law Party of Michigan without a presidential candidate at the top of the ballot after he sought and accepted the nomination.
A majority of the Michigan Supreme Court agreed that Kennedy had missed the window to exit. The court said elections are run for the benefit of voters and not the whims of candidates.
That seemed to settle the question until Kennedy filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit just less than a week later. The new filing claims Kennedy’s free speech and freedom of association rights are being violated and keeping his name on the ballot would be misleading to voters.
Election clerks are concerned because critical ballot deadlines have already passed. In fact, many county clerks are not waiting for a federal court decision.
Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown, a Democrat, said the lawsuit poses a problem since her office has already sent ballots to be printed so they can be distributed to local jurisdictions.
“We’re printing a million ballots for Oakland County,” she told Michigan Public Radio. “That doesn’t happen overnight, and we can’t sit here and wait. Otherwise, now, we’re going to have voters disenfranchised because we won’t have ballots in time.”
Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck, a Republican, said a decision to change ballots this late in the process would have consequences, especially since ballot printing is a specialty that requires compliance with exacting standards that not all printers are equipped to handle.
“Our ballots, along with many other ballots across the state of Michigan, had already gone to print before this lawsuit was filed,” he said. “So, ultimately, a federal judge in this case would have to essentially direct us to reprint millions of ballots across the state of Michigan.”
Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said she is not worried yet. But with fewer than 50 days until Election Day, she said the window is closing.
“As long as I can get ballots to my service members and my constituents by the time that’s required, which is 45 days before Election Day, I’m good,” she said. “If I’m not able to do that, there’s a problem.”
Roebuck said the process has been grueling for election staff, who had to pivot quickly from the August primaries to the general election cycle and the growing popularity of absentee ballots and early in-person voting.
“I think we’re all feeling the real pinch of the reality that our elections are less than two months away and we have all of these obligations,” he said. “And so the litigation process, to benefit all of us -- and voters, most importantly -- needs to take place prior to these deadlines.”
