The Michigan Supreme Court opened the door for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to keep RFK Jr. on the ballot in a Monday ruling, reversing a Friday court of appeals decision that ruled his name be removed. This comes despite Kennedy’s announcement last month he would drop out of the race, withdrawing his name from the ballot in swing states like Michigan in hopes of helping former President Donald Trump.
“This plainly has nothing to do with ballot or election integrity,” Kennedy’s attorney Aaron Siri said Monday to The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland. “The aim is precisely the opposite – to have unwitting Michigan voters throw away their votes on a withdrawn candidate.”
The ruling allows Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to keep Kennedy’s name on November’s ballot. But the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered Kennedy’s name off the ballot Friday, as the Federalist previously reported.
“The Michigan secretary of state, as directed by the Court of Appeals, had already certified the candidates to all 83 counties in Michigan for ballot printing without Mr. Kennedy’s name,” Siri said to Cleveland.
The Federalist asked Benson’s office if she planned to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot and whether it was possible to do so at this point. But Director of Communications Angela Benander simply said: “We’re grateful to the Michigan Supreme Court for their swift response. Clerks can now move forward with the ballot printing process to ensure absentee ballots will be delivered to voters by the federal deadlines.”
The Ruling
The state supreme court’s ruling reversed Friday’s court of appeals ruling, according to the court order.
“Plaintiff has neither pointed to any source of law that prescribes and defines a duty to withdraw a candidate’s name from the ballot nor demonstrated his clear legal right to performance of this specific duty, let alone identified a source of law written with ‘”such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment,'” the Monday order reads. “Thus, the plaintiff has not shown an entitlement to this extraordinary relief, and we reverse.”
Justices David F. Viviano and Brian K. Zahra dissented, saying the “ruling will do nothing to rebuild the public’s trust in the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
“No statute prohibits a presidential candidate from withdrawing his or her candidacy. And there is no practical reason for denying a request to withdraw before the ballots have been printed for the general election,” the dissent reads.
The ruling has the potential to affect the election’s outcome with a “significant cost to the integrity of the election,” as “voters will be improperly denied a choice between persons who are actually candidates, and who are willing to serve if elected,” Viviano and Zahra argued.
“The ballots printed as a result of the Court’s decision will have the potential to confuse the voters, distort their choices, and pervert the true popular will and affect the outcome of the election,” the dissent reads.
Election Engineering
When Kennedy’s campaign first requested to withdraw his name from the ballot, Michigan’s Natural Law Party — under whose banner he was running — reached out to the state director of elections, saying the party opposed Kennedy’s request because it could find itself subject to “severe prejudice if its candidate were removed from the ballot,” according to the state supreme court order.
Last month, Benson said she would keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot even after he withdrew from the race, with her office reportedly claiming “minor party candidates cannot withdraw,” as previously noted in The Federalist. Her office also reportedly claimed Kennedy could not withdraw because he had passed the deadline for his political party to choose new electors.
So Kennedy filed a complaint in the court of claims on Aug. 30, as noted in the order. The court denied Kennedy’s request, so he brought the case to the court of appeals.
The court of appeals found Kennedy had a “clear legal right to have his name removed from the ballot,” according to its Sept. 6 order. It found Michigan law allows party conventions to nominate candidates for state office, who then “shall not be permitted to withdraw.” But it ruled this does not include nominations to the federal office of president.
In the state supreme court ruling, Justice Elizabeth Welch argued in her concurring opinion that, on this point, “statutory ambiguity makes it impossible to conclude that defendant had a clear legal duty to remove plaintiff from the ballot.”
Kennedy said “his internal polls had shown that his presence in the race would hurt Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris” in the election, as noted in the Associated Press.
At the same time, Benson and state Democrats have been pushing to keep third-party candidate Cornel West off Michigan’s ballot, citing technicalities with his identity notarization and “and allegations that West’s petitions to get on the ballot were fraudulent,” according to The Detroit News.
The state supreme court declined to take up a Democrat appeal to an earlier decision by the court of appeals, which said West must remain on the ballot. West’s presence on the ballot could likely hurt Harris’ chances, as noted by PBS.
After being asked why Benson was working to keep Kennedy on the ballot and Cornel West off the ballot, Benander told The Federalist that Benson’s office “did not seek to overturn the Appellate Court’s decision on Cornel West.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
