A federal judge in Detroit said she will issue a decision Wednesday on whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can have his name removed from Michigan’s presidential ballot.
Kennedy is on the ballot after seeking and accepting the nomination of the Natural Law Party of Michigan at a small party convention.
The Michigan Secretary of State refused his request to withdraw because he missed the deadline for minor party candidates. Kennedy is trying to remove his name from ballots in battleground states after suspending his campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
In a close election like Michigan's is expected to be, a third-party candidate pulling votes from either of the two major parties could prove decisive.
But Kennedy’s change of heart is irrelevant to his ballot status, said Assistant Attorney General Erik Grill in a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood.
“Once the parties nominate, that is it,” he told her.
The state says President Joe Biden was able to withdraw because even though he won Michigan’s February primary, he was never formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention.
Kennedy’s attorney, Brandon Debus, said minor parties’ nominating convention dates are aligned with the major parties’ primaries. He said, as a practical matter, that gave Biden more time to decide to withdraw than Kennedy.
“Deadlines should be applied equally to major party and minor party candidates,” he said.
It did not come up in the arguments, but the Natural Law Party of Michigan is unique in that it is not affiliated with a national party. Nominating Kennedy was a bid to give the party a leg up in continuing to automatically qualify for ballot status in Michigan if it wins enough votes in November.
The Natural Law Party of Michigan is not a party to the case, a fact noted by Debus.
The state argued that Kennedy malingered in filing the case. Grill noted Kennedy did not claim a harm in a federal court until after losing in the Michigan Supreme Court. He also said Kennedy cannot claim a harm because he is not being denied anything. And, he said, voters who want to cast a ballot for Kennedy also deserve to be heard.
“The votes that people cast for Mr. Kennedy will be counted and they will be tabulated,” he said.
County clerks in Michigan, faced with legal deadlines, are not waiting on a decision in the case. The vast majority have already sent ballots to qualified printers, who have to be proficient in the intricacies of ballot printing. A decision to drop Kennedy from the ballot would mean that work would have to start over.
The decision expected Wednesday from the judge is not necessarily the final word. Her judgement could be appealed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
