North Carolina could miss a federal deadline to distribute mail-in ballots to members of the military and overseas voters, as the state scrambles to reprint ballots to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the list of presidential candidates.
The state may seek a Department of Defense waiver in case it cannot meet the requirement to have ballots distributed at least 45 days before Election Day, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The deadline this cycle would be Sept. 21.
Election officials are in a dash to redesign and reprint ballots on time, after the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Monday that Kennedy, who made it onto the ballot as a We The People Party candidate, should not be included.
“We will continue to consult with counties and ballot vendors to determine the feasible start date for distributing absentee ballots statewide, mindful of the goal to meet the 45-day federal deadline,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a statement. “This decision imposes a tremendous hardship on our county boards, at an extremely busy time. But our election officials are professionals, and I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge.”
Kennedy abruptly ended his independent campaign for president nearly three weeks ago and threw his support behind former President Trump, the Republican nominee facing Vice President Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Kennedy has since set out to have his name removed from ballots in key swing states in an attempt to boost Trump's vote tally.
North Carolina's ruling to remove Kennedy from its ballots came on the same day that the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that he should stay on the ballot in the Great Lakes State.
Both states are considered key battlegrounds with tight margins that could swing to either Harris or Trump's favor on Election Day.
According to the North Carolina elections board, more than 146,000 people, including about 13,000 military and overseas voters, have requested mail-in ballots for the general election.
The North Carolina court, in its split decision, ruled that the elections board waited nearly a week before deciding whether to remove Kennedy's name and allowed ballots to be printed in the meantime.
The board said in its release on a potential mail-in balloting delay that elections officials will separate and store all ballots already printed with Kennedy's name to "avoid any possibility that the wrong ballots are sent to voters."
