RFK Jr.’s Ballot Access in New York To Be Decided at Trial Beginning Monday

A trial will begin Monday in New York to decide if independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can appear on the state’s general election ballot in November. The candidate is accused of lying about his residency on official forms. Mr. Kennedy filed to run for president using a New York state address, where the candidate has been registered as a resident for years despite the fact he lives in California with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines. He has acknowledged that the address is the home of a friend, and he has never lived there himself. A liberal group aligned with President Biden, Clear Choice, filed its residency complaint with the Board of Elections in June, though the board transferred the issue to state court, where the matter will be resolved by a court at Albany in the coming weeks. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign told the New York Times in June that the candidate is a New York resident because he still pays rent and still receives his mail there, even though he spends more time in California with his wife. “He receives mail there. His driver’s license is registered there. His automobile is registered there. His voting registration is from there,” the campaign told the Times. “He pays rent to the owner.”Other legal challenges have been filed against Mr. Kennedy in states across the country. In New Jersey, an election lawyer lost his bid to bar Mr. Kennedy from the state’s general election ballot under the “sore loser law,” which prohibits candidates from running independent campaigns after losing a major party primary.Before running as an independent, Mr. Kennedy filed to run as a Democrat in the primaries against Mr. Biden. Complaints in Nevada and North Carolina have already been filed against the independent candidate under those states’ sore loser laws. A separate challenge in New York questioning Mr. Kennedy’s signature-gathering efforts has been filed at a Nassau County court, where two state residents say the candidate submitted invalid signatures in order to gain access to the general election ballot.In June, Mr. Kennedy submitted nearly 150,000 signatures to gain ballot access — well above the 45,000 needed. The two residents say 115,000 of those signatures are riddled with errors, including a lack of corresponding dates and home addresses. They also say many of the signatures are from New Yorkers who are not actually registered to vote, meaning they cannot be on a ballot petition under state law. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, at its high point, was garnering 15 percent in national polls, though he was nowhere near winning any Electoral College votes. The bid has been marred by a number of stories about the candidate’s personal life, including the most recent story that details his decision to dump a bear cub carcass in Central Park several years ago. He has also talked about his own past, including an incident where doctors found a dead parasitic worm in his brain as well as his relationships with men accused of sexual assault including Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby.

RFK Jr.’s Ballot Access in New York To Be Decided at Trial Beginning Monday

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