By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Friday a bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore his name to the ballot in New York state even though he suspended his campaign as an independent for president in August and endorsed Donald Trump.
The justices denied a request by Kennedy’s campaign and other allies ordering New York election officials to reinstate his name on the ballot after state courts disqualified him for claiming an invalid address as his residence in paperwork.
When Kennedy suspended his campaign, he pledged to withdraw in the most closely contested states but remain on the ballot elsewhere. Kennedy has since urged his supporters everywhere to back Trump and has withdrawn from the ballot in a number of Republican-leaning states.
His fight to stay on the ballot in Democratic-leaning New York emerged after a state judge ruled in favor of a challenge by individual voters who claimed Kennedy deceptively provided a false New York residence on his petition to get on the ballot, when he actually lives in California, in violation of state law.
The judge agreed, calling it a “sham” address that he used “for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration and furthering his own political aspirations in this state.”
Kennedy’s campaign challenged the residency disclosure requirement in federal court and sought an order to keep him on the ballot. Both a federal judge and the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that request earlier in September.
The campaign urged the Supreme Court to intervene because lower courts “did not find that anyone was misled by the address,” yet the decision to remove him deprives his supporters of the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
In an email, an attorney for a political action committee supporting Kennedy and a voter who signed Kennedy’s nomination petition, who joined the campaign’s federal lawsuit, said Kennedy has only suspended his campaign. He “hasn’t terminated it,” said Rick Jaffe in the email, adding that “our clients have a right to have him appear on the ballot and vote for him, regardless of the current suspended status of his campaign.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James asked the Supreme Court to reject Kennedy’s request in a filing, noting that tens of thousands of ballots have already been mailed to overseas and military voters.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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