Officials concerned as RFK campaign continues

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s attempt to remove his name from Michigan's presidential election ballot will be heard in federal court on Tuesday. Kennedy is seeking to withdraw from Michigan and other swing states after endorsing former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The state informed Kennedy that he had missed the deadline to withdraw and that he could not leave the Natural Law Party of Michigan without a presidential candidate at the top of the ballot after seeking and accepting the nomination.

A majority of the Michigan Supreme Court agreed that Kennedy had missed the opportunity to drop out. The court said elections are conducted for the benefit of voters, not at the whims of candidates.

That seemed to settle the issue until Kennedy filed a lawsuit in federal court in Detroit less than a week later. The new lawsuit alleges that Kennedy's freedom of speech and association were violated and that keeping his name on the ballot would mislead voters.

Poll workers are worried because important voting deadlines have already passed. In fact, many county officials are not even waiting for a federal court decision.

Oakland County Democratic Clerk Lisa Brown said the lawsuit was problematic because her office had already sent out ballots to be printed so they could be distributed to local precincts.

“We're printing a million ballots for Oakland County,” she told Michigan Public Radio. “It's not going to happen overnight, and we can't just sit and wait. Otherwise we're going to disenfranchise voters because we don't have the ballots in time.”

Ottawa County Republican County Clerk Justin Roebuck said a decision to alter ballots so late in the process would have consequences, especially since ballot printing is a specialty that requires adherence to strict standards that not all printers are equipped to meet.

“Our ballots, like many other ballots across the state of Michigan, were already printed before this lawsuit was filed,” he said. “So ultimately, a federal judge in this case would essentially have to order us to reprint millions of ballots across the state of Michigan.”

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said she is not yet concerned. But with Election Day less than 50 days away, the window of opportunity is closing, she said.

“As long as I can get the ballots to my soldiers and voters in time, 45 days before Election Day, everything is fine,” she said. “If I can't do that, there's a problem.”

Roebuck said the process was stressful for poll workers, who had to quickly adjust from the August primary to the general election cycle and the growing popularity of mail-in ballots and early in-person voting.

“I think we all feel the harsh reality that our elections are less than two months away and we have all these obligations,” he said. “And so the process that benefits all of us – and most importantly, the voters – has to happen before those deadlines.”