BREAKING: Michigan Supreme Court Issues New Ruling On Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Ballot Status

On Monday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will remain on the 2024 ballot as a presidential candidate despite his attempts to get his name removed after he dropped out of the race last month and endorsed 45th President Donald Trump. The state court's decision comes after Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D-MI) appealed a lower court's decision that would have removed Kennedy's name.

"Plaintiff has neither pointed to any source of law that prescribes and defines a duty to withdraw a candidate's name from the ballot nor demonstrated his clear legal right to performance of this specific duty," the court, which has four liberals and three conservatives, ruled. In a concurrence, liberal Justice Elizabeth Welch explained that RFK Jr. had waited over four months after he was nominated to be president to request that his name be removed.

"When plaintiff made his request, defendant faced a deadline for ballot printing that was two weeks away," Welch wrote. "Additionally, the Natural Law Party, which opposed plaintiff's efforts to remove himself from the ballot, had no opportunity to field a candidate and faced considerable prejudice."

In a dissenting opinion, Justices David Viviano and Brian Zahra explained that keeping Kennedy's name on the ballot could drastically impact the result of the presidential election in the key swing state, given the expected small margin of voters that would decide who would carry the state. The duo criticized the majority's opinion as "confounding, imprecise and counterintuitive." "We can only hope that the secretary's misguided action — now sanctioned with the imprimatur of this Court — will not have national implications," they wrote, according to The Detriot News.

While RFK Jr. was unable to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan, he has been successful in several other competitive states. In North Carolina, an appeals court ruled that Kennedy should be removed from the ballot as counties were about to send out ballots to military and overseas voters. The appeal court's decision will likely delay those ballots because it would force election officials to reprint the ballots with the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket removed. It is unclear whether the court's decision will be appealed.

In a message to election officials on Friday, Paul Cox, general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, explained that they will work on determining whether reprinting ballots is the correct step forward. "Obviously, this will be a major undertaking for everyone. Our attorneys are reviewing the order and determining how to move forward. No decision has been made on whether this ruling will be appealed," Cox explained to local election officials.

With the 2024 presidential election less than two months away, the race will continue to tighten, and every vote will matter. RFK's removal from the ballot in some states could be the turning point that could lead to Trump winning over Harris, and Kennedy's name remaining on the ballot in Michigan will somewhat hurt Trump's chances of carrying the state's 15 electoral votes.

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