RFK Jr sues North Carolina elections board to remove his name from ballot
Action comes after a series of ballot woes are threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end campaign
The legal action comes after a series of ballot woes that initially impeded Kennedy's campaign but are now threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end it.
Kennedy announced the suspension of his presidential bid on 23 August, saying he planned to remove his name from the ballot in 10 states, including vital swing states where his was presence was likely to damage Trump in knife-edge contests with Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
"Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues," Kennedy told journalists when he announced his withdrawal in Phoenix, Arizona, last month.
However, Kennedy's request to remove his name in North Carolina – a key battleground where recent opinion surveys have shown Harris taking a small lead – was rejected by the state election board after it said around 1.7m ballot papers had already been printed and that producing new ones would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"It would not be practical to reprint ballots that have already been printed and meet the state law deadline to start absentee voting," the board said in a 29 August statement.
