(The Center Square) – After the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on North Carolina ballots, the Board of Elections announced that the state’s 100 counties are now moving forward to design and print new ballots.
Through Monday, 146,603 North Carolina voters including more than 12,900 military and overseas voters had requested absentee ballots for the 2024 general election, a release says.
While the state deadline to begin sending out absentee ballots passed late last week, the state must now move forward to try to meet the 45-day deadline in federal law – Sept. 21 – for distributing military and overseas ballots to voters.
“The State Board has begun discussions with the U.S. Department of Defense to seek a potential waiver of that deadline, if ballots are not ready in all counties by that date,” a statement from the board said.
The board will have all counties begin mailing at the same time so equal opportunity prevails.
In North Carolina, there are 2,348 different ballot styles statewide for the 2024 general election.
“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. “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 2.9 million ballots that have already been printed will be moved to storage, according to a statement from the board.
“The State Board has asked county boards to strictly separate and move to storage all ballots that had been printed with the We The People Party line on them,” it said. “This is to avoid any possibility that the wrong ballots are sent to voters.”
Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger Jr., in his concurring opinion, which recommended all previous ballots be “destroyed.”
“The director of the State Board of Elections and the director of each county Board of Elections should be required to certify destruction of these invalid ballots to maintain public confidence in the upcoming election,” Berger said.
This all comes after the Democratic majority on the board narrowly voted on Aug. 29 against Kennedy’s request to be removed from the ballot. Members of the board said it was “impractical” to remove him from the ballot and counties were told to move forward with ballot preparations.
Kennedy appealed that decision, won at the appellate level, and again at the state’s highest court.
Kennedy was granted access to the ballot on July 16 affiliated with the We The People Party, after first being denied access by the board.
Kennedy decided to remove his name from the ballot following his decision to suspend his presidential campaign on Aug. 23 and endorse former President Donald Trump.
Since then, Kennedy’s name has been removed from the ballots in five of seven consensus battleground states, minus only Wisconsin and Michigan. A decision was expected in Wisconsin on Tuesday.
