Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s We the People party was legitimately certified, a Wake Superior Court judge ruled Monday in rejecting the state Democratic Party’s attempt to keep the third party candidate off the ballot.
The NC Democratic Party sued the state Board of Elections and We the People, saying the Board was wrong to grant We the People status as a party.
By forming the alternative party and running Kennedy as its candidate, We the People had to collect only 13,865 signatures from registered voters on their petitions. If Kennedy had gone through with his original plan to run as an independent candidate, he would have had to submit more than 83,000 petition signatures.
State Democrats claimed We the People skirted the law to lower the signature threshold.
“You cannot have a party that’s for the sole purpose of putting an independent candidate on the ballot,” said Ray Bennett, one of the Democrats’ lawyers.
In a ruling from the bench, Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory said he would not issue the preliminary injunction Democrats wanted.
“It would be unconscionable for this court to attempt to tell a candidate who has decided to use one of two methods that the method that he used was a subterfuge, when in fact, if it is or it isn’t, he still complied with the requirements,” Gregory said.
Bennett would not say whether Democrats would appeal, but time is running short. The deadline for printing ballots is near. Counties will begin mailing absentee ballots to voters who request them on Sept. 6.
The state Board of Elections voted 4-1 last month to certify We the People. One Democrat was opposed and Board Chairman Alan Hirsch said he was voting reluctantly to allow the alternative party. It was a legal close call that the courts would have to decide, Hirsch said at the time.
Terence Steed, a lawyer representing the state Board, argued Monday that it’s not up to the Board to decide whether or not an alternative party is being formed for a valid purpose.
“There is simply no test like this in the statute,” said Steed, who is a lawyer in the state Attorney General’s office.
Democrats are arguing against We the People’s First Amendment right to form a political party, said Oliver Hall, a lawyer representing the new party. We the People complied with all provisions of state law, he said.
Democrats are challenging Kennedy’s ballot access in a number of states.
Outside the courtroom, Hall said Democrats’ attempts to deny Kennedy ballot access is “fundamentally anti-democratic.”
“It’s unbefitting of the name of the Democratic Party. They are trying to suppress voter choice. They are doing so by resorting to the courts by making extremely novel if not totally unfounded claims here and elsewhere.”
The consideration of alternative party certifications in North Carolina has been shot through with claims of partisanship for months.
State and national Republicans criticized the Democratic majority on the Board of Elections for delaying decisions on third party certifications and for ultimately turning back a request from Cornel West’s Justice for All party.
But Gregory seemed to be put off by the suggestion in a July 1 letter to the state Board of Elections from We the People Vice Chairman and lawyer Ryan Rabah that its certification decision was delayed because of partisan politics.
“My plain reading of the letter, which was part of everything that was sent to me, was that the party felt as though, based on party affiliation, that they were not going to receive fair treatment,” Gregory said.
“When you make those kinds of statements and you set the parameters to say well, if you’re a Democrat or you’re a Republican, you’re going to be this way, then you lay the groundwork, unfortunately, for what we have here now,” he said.
“I have no dog in this fight,” Gregory said. “My job is to be fair and impartial to both parties or to any litigants that appear in front of me.”
