This election just keeps getting stranger and stranger and thankfully, more and more of it is being exposed for being the incredibly corrupt process that it really is.
I only saw a blurb about this and didn't read that much into it because a while ago I decided that I was going to tune out about the Presidential politics for the rest of the campaign. This simply appeared on regular North Carolina news though because yes, it is a big deal.
North Carolina's leaders, many at the top who are Democrat, are refusing to take his name off the ballot even though he has suspended his campaign and made it very clear that he doesn't want to be on the ticket in any battleground states.
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Now I am going to play devil's advocate here and talk about both why it is crazy and corrupt that they wont remove him from the ballot and also point out why it is somewhat valid that they wouldn't take him off the ballot and are refusing his request.
The first thing is that there are some Democrats that are in charge of how elections are run in North Carolina and although the options they have as far as limiting a candidate are not massive and all encompassing, they do have the "say so" as far as making something easy, or making it as complicated as possible. I'm not trying to say that if the shoe was on the other foot and the Elections board of North Carolina just happened to be Republican that they wouldn't do the same thing as well... they probably would if they thought that leaving him on the ballot would hurt the other side. Let's just face facts here. Politics are really dirty and anything they can possibly do to get a slight edge, well, they are going to do it.
The Election's Board voted 3-2 to refuse to take RFK Jr. off the North Carolina ballot and Grug Gutfeld said it perfectly when he stated that "RFK Jr. wants the government to respect his right to NOT run for President and they are denying it."
The crazy thing is that RFK Jr. had to seriously fight to get ON the ballot in the first place and now he is facing just as much trouble to get off of it.
Now for the case as far as the Election Board is concerned and you can just take this at face-value. If they are telling the truth, and since they are involved in politics I doubt that is the case but let's just assume that they are for a minute for the sake of argument.
They stated that 2 million ballots have already been printed and has his name of it and it would cost an undue amount of money to reprint all of those. I think this is understandable enough, if it is true, but honestly, I'm at the point where almost anyone in the government states anything at all I presume it is a lie. Whether or not they are blue or red doesn't really matter to me, they are all scumbags.
Recent information has come to light in various polls that suggest that RFK Jr. is more of a spoiler for Trump than for Harris and that is what I think the main motivation for refusing to take him off the ballot is.
We also need to look at this from another point of view though and seriously, this one is important. If the person who is voting is oblivious enough to vote for someone that they know no longer wants you to vote for him, then honestly, this person is a voter that should be ignored. I have been a Libertarian protest voter for many years knowing damn well that my candidate of choice doesn't stand a chance of winning. I feel as though this is a far cry from someone who still votes for someone even though they are aware the person isn't even running anymore. Furthermore, if they take RFK Jr. off the ballot and endure whatever thousands of dollars it costs to reprint the ballots there would still be absolutely nothing stopping supporters from writing him in. There are, after all, thousands of people per year that vote for fictional characters such as Darth Vader.
RFK Jr. is currently suing the state of North Carolina to force them to take his name off the ballot and Jaysus Christ, can we just get this election over with so all of this nonsense can stop?
It looks like he is on the ballot for Washington and Oregon, both of which are almost guaranteed to go to Harris regardless, and has enough signatures for ballot access in Idaho and Montana, nether of which is likely to stray from Trump. That's all I can say for my neck of the woods.
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I really don't think it is going to have a meaningful impact and this is just more theater at this point.
Gotta love the ruling from the judge in Michigan who ruled against him in a similar suit:
“Elections are not just games, and the Secretary of State (SOS) is not obligated to honor the whims of candidates for public office.”
I wonder how much money is spent on lawsuits like this. I went to court once in my life and it was one of the most expensive endeavors of my entire existence.
Yes I would say your assumption is spot on and should have made his mind up earlier. Those that vote for him are ignorant like you say and it sounds crazy, but he will receive votes.
well even though RFK seems like a decent dude, I think he was biding his time to see which admin he was going to align with in order to have as much influence as possible.
leave it alone. How many people are still going to vote for a guy that isn't running? IF they would still do it they were likely going to just vote 3rd party anyway. A person who would still vote for him was never going to vote for Trump or Harris anyway in 99% of instances.
what you say is logical but I really don't believe that a lot of the potential voters are logical people and the candidates know this.
This is probably true. how else can we explain the tactics they are using?