Federal judge tells RFK Jr. his name will stay on Michigan's presidential ballot
(This story has been updated.)
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former independent candidate for president, to have his name removed from Michigan's Nov. 5 ballot.
According to evidence in the case, 90% of Michigan ballots have already been printed and it would cost at least a half million dollars to reprint them without Kennedy's name.
Kennedy made the last-ditch appeal to federal court, seeking an injunction against the printing of ballots, after losing in the Michigan Supreme Court.
Kennedy, 70, suspended his independent bid for president on Aug. 23 and endorsed former President Donald Trump. In several battleground states, including Michigan, the Kennedy campaign moved to be taken off the ballot, in an apparent effort to not take votes away from Trump.
U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood said in an 18-page ruling that Kennedy can't sue in federal court because his case had already been adjudicated in state court.
Kennedy "now pleads before this court seeking a second bite at the apple, to which he is not entitled," the judge wrote.
Kennedy was also too slow in filing various appeals, Hood wrote.
As of Tuesday, state officials said 90% of the total ballots have already been printed and it would cost at least half a million dollars to do them over again, Hood wrote in her opinion.
Hood also said that having campaigned for and won the nomination of Michigan's Natural Law Party at a state convention, his interest in unilaterally withdrawing, over the objections of the NLP, "is outweighed by the state's interest in maintaining the integrity of the ballot."
Further federal appeals are possible.
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Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, argued that as a minor party candidate, Kennedy had no provision in state law for removing his name from the ballot.
Kennedy won in the Michigan Court of Appeals, but on Sept. 9, the Michigan Supreme Court, which has a 4-3 majority of Democratic nominees, ruled in Benson's favor, in a split decision.
Hood was appointed to the federal bench in 1994, by former President Bill Clinton.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Federal judge tells RFK Jr. his name will stay on Michigan's ballot