I had foolishly thought that we had put all of this ballot-jousting nonsense behind us after the Supreme Court effectively gutted efforts to remove Donald Trump from multiple ballots. Clearly I was wrong. The latest example of this phenomenon comes to us in the form of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It had appeared that he was all set to be on the presidential ballot in New York State. The New York State Board of Elections had already confirmed that RFK had submitted more than double the required number of signatures for ballot access. He's above the minimum age (by quite a bit) and there is no question that he's a U.S. citizen. And yet a judge in Albany, New York ruled yesterday that RFK's name must not appear on the ballot because he isn't a resident of New York, despite having a valid home address in the state, not that he spends much time there. If this sounds confusing to you at first glance, you're not alone. But we'll sort it out here together. (NY Post)
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t a resident of New York and will not appear on the Empire State’s ballot, a lower court in Albany ruled.
In a decision released late Monday, Justice Christina L. Ryba ordered Kennedy, 70, to not appear on New York’s presidential ballot, a move that will likely lead to efforts to remove him from other states’ ballots as well.
“Kennedy’s designation of the 84 Croton Lake Road address as his ‘place of residence’ was a false statement requiring invalidation of the petition,” Ryba wrote.
If you're like me, the first question that might come to mind is why RFK's residency would matter. You don't have to be a resident of New York to appear on the presidential ballot there. All of the major candidates' names are showing up on ballots in states where they've never lived. That much is true, but the judge's ruling was a bit more nuanced than that. In order to appear on the ballot, you have to file a legal application to add your name. As part of that application, you also have to provide your home address and a number of other bits of information. RFK listed his address as being 84 Croton Lake Road in Westchester County, New York. The judge declared that Kennedy was actually a resident of California, making his application invalid.
This decision carries a significant stench with it, not least because the Democrats in New York have a significant motivation to keep RFK off the ballot wherever they can. Nobody seriously believes that Kennedy could carry New York and it's highly unlikely that Trump will either. But the state is currently much closer in the polls than anyone could have predicted even two years ago. Also, Kennedy could produce some down-ballot drag and his impact is far more likely to benefit Trump than Harris.
As the linked report points out, if this decision stands on appeal, it could produce a spiraling effect that might essentially erase RFK from the race. Kennedy used that same address when applying to get on the ballot in all fifty states. If other states use this judgment as precedent, he could be removed from every ballot except California. To be fair to the judge, it's well known that Kennedy primarily does live in California with his wife, but that's not his official address. Throwing more salt in the wound, were California to recognize Kennedy as a resident, he would become ineligible to receive any of California's electoral votes due to the 12th Amendment because his running mate, Nicole Shannahan, is a California resident.
RFK makes some admirable arguments on his own behalf, which you can read here. Not only does he legally own a home in is own name in Westchester County, but he is registered to vote in New York, pays taxes there, and has a New York driver’s license, along with his legal license and law practice. They are all in New York. He may not spend as much time in the state as he does in California these days, but he's well into retirement age at this point. It's difficult to see how anyone could flatly declare him not to be a resident.
Sadly, these are the types of tricks and schemes we'll be dealing with all through the 2024 election cycle. I thought the Democrats had hit the bottom of the barrel when they tried to knock Trump off of the ballot in multiple states, but it's clear that RFK has been identified as a potential threat to their power in a close election. As such, their crosshairs have settled on him as well. This judge's ruling in New York just doesn't seem as if it was made in good faith. And if not, we won't require much of a stretch of the imagination to guess why. For whatever it may or may not be worth, Judge Ryba holds one of those elected judgeships. She was elected in 2015 running on the Democratic Working Families Party ticket. They are further to the left than New York's Democrats.
