The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) will recognize Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s We the People political party, following two delays, meaning that he will appear on North Carolina’s 2024 general election ballot, the board said in a July 16 statement.
The panel, which includes three Democrats and two Republicans, voted 4–1 in favor of certifying We the People while opting 3–2 to deny ballot access to presidential candidate Cornel West’s Justice For All party.
The board’s chairman, Alan Hirsch, a Democrat, said during the July 16 state board meeting that although he believed there had been “subterfuge,” he was reluctantly voting for We the People’s certification.
“I think it is such a close call that ultimately a court would have to decide it. And therefore, I’m not sure if the board should be the one that is standing in the way,” Mr. Hirsch said.
Siobhan Millen, who is also a Democrat, voted against recognizing We the People, saying Mr. Kennedy was circumventing state law by attempting to form a new political party for the sole purpose of gaining ballot access for his presidential campaign.
“A political party is intended to be more than a transitory entity designed to be a vehicle for a single candidate,” Ms. Millen said in the meeting.
Democrats on the board said there were too many questions about where signatures were obtained in Mr. West’s campaign and whether signers were adequately alerted about the new party’s purpose.
An investigation into potentially fraudulent signatures from Justice For All is ongoing, the Democrats on the panel added.
Stacy Eggers, a Republican on the board, said Justice For All had surpassed the minimum requirement for signatures needed to create a new party.
“I do think this board is making a tragic error in not deferring to the verified signatures that have been determined through our county board process,” Mr. Eggers said in the meeting.
Delayed Rulings
National and state Republicans have criticized Democrats on the NCSBE for the delays in granting ballot access for parties.Over the past two months, the DNC and Clear Choice have objected to Mr. Kennedy’s appearance on the ballot, with legal filings in four states including the battlegrounds of Nevada and North Carolina.
Mr. Kennedy first met resistance from the NCSBE on June 26 when the board postponed approval for Mr. Kennedy, Mr. West, and the Constitution Party’s nominee, Randall Terry, during a virtual meeting.
Democrats on the board cited concerns about how We the People represented itself while circulating petitions and gathering signatures.
Mr. Hirsch said on June 26 that the three parties requesting certification had likely met the requirement for signatures. The delay was intended to give the board enough time to perform due diligence in verifying the petitions.
On July 9, the panel voted to allow Mr. Terry’s name on North Carolina’s general election ballot in November but decided to further delay its ruling on the parties headlined by Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West.
Mr. Kennedy previously told The Epoch Times that he would appear on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The Kennedy–Nicole Shanahan ticket is on the ballot in nine states and has collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot in 29 states with a total of 390 Electoral College votes.
His campaign submitted paperwork to create We the People in January. The campaign has said that filing for political party status in certain states reduced the number of signatures required for the candidate to gain ballot access.
In North Carolina, independent presidential candidates must obtain 83,188 valid signatures, compared with 13,865 for political party nominees.
After leaving the Democratic Party presidential primary and announcing he'd run as an independent in October 2023, Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times that his campaign suspected that both parties would seek to keep him off the ballot.
Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee announced the creation of a team to counter third-party and independent presidential candidates.
