Supreme Court Won’t Restore RFK Jr.’s Name to New York Ballot

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces he is suspending his presidential campaign at a news conference in Phoenix, on Aug. 23, 2024. Darryl Webb/AP Photo

The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 27 denied Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to put his name back on New York’s presidential ballot after a lower court disqualified him.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred the emergency application in Team Kennedy v. Berger to the full court, which denied it without comment in a one-sentence order.

Kennedy, an independent, announced on Aug. 23 that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.

Although Kennedy has tried to remove his name from swing state ballots since Aug. 23, he has left his name on the ballot in some other states. He said he is doing this in a longshot bid to secure the presidency in a possible so-called contingent election that would put the presidency in the hands of the U.S. House of Representatives in the event of an electoral college deadlock.

Kennedy’s application to the Supreme Court said that Kennedy’s campaign gathered more than the required number of signatures from New York voters. The New York State Board of Elections certified more than 100,000 signatures as valid and ordered his name placed on the ballot.

Kennedy argued that the precedent set in Anderson v. Celebrezze required the high court to restore him to the state ballot.

Ohio blocked independent presidential candidate John Anderson from that state’s ballot in 1980 after he gathered the required number of signatures from Ohio voters but missed a filing deadline.

In that case, the court “would have none of it, holding that Ohio’s interests in its filing deadline did not outweigh the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights at stake.”

The court “has long recognized the constitutional ‘right of voters to associate and to have candidates of their choice placed on the ballot.’”

“Absent immediate, emergency relief, over 100,000 New York voters who signed the invalidated Kennedy petition will be irrevocably deprived of that right,” the application stated.

On Aug. 12, Judge Christina Ryba of the New York Supreme Court found Kennedy had falsely claimed he had a New York residence despite living in California. The rented room in Katonah, New York, that he said was his residence wasn’t a “bona fide and legitimate residence, but merely a ‘sham’ address that he assumed for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration” and advancing his candidacy, Ryba wrote.

On Sept. 10, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling, and the next day, the elections board certified the general election ballot without Kennedy’s name on it.

On Sept. 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the campaign’s motion to reverse the ruling in a one-sentence order.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Kennedy campaign and New York state legal officials but received no replies by publication time.

Rick Jaffe, an attorney who participated in the application representing American Values 2024, a super PAC supporting Kennedy, and individuals who signed the candidate’s ballot petitions, said keeping Kennedy off the New York ballot won’t hinder the movement he leads.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if New York’s success in removing … RFK Jr. may backfire and spur even greater efforts towards a third-party movement for the next presidential election, unless RFK Jr.’s important agenda reforming the health care system, and other aspects of his platform are implemented by the next administration,” he told The Epoch Times.

“The case has been efficiently and respectfully decided by the highest court in the land, but the vision, and its implementation continue,” he said.