The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted on Wednesday to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Cornel W. off the November presidential ballot. They said they wanted more time to examine their petitions.

On Wednesday, candidates who were running as an alternative to Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump weren’t allowed to vote in North Carolina. This was due to pressure from Democrats questioning the legitimacy of their parties and allegations made by the GOP about Democrats trying to sway the election.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections, in a vote along party lines, rejected the initial bids of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cornel WEST and Constitution Party candidate Randall Terry, to place their names onto the November ballot. They said they wanted more time to review the petitions.

The two Republican board members voted for the placement of the candidates on ballots, whereas the three Democratic board members rejected these motions.

This decision casts doubt on the outcome of the election in November. If the decision stands, it could reduce competition between Trump and Biden for a state that has historically seen presidential candidates with small margins of victories.

Democrats raised different concerns with each petition. They questioned if Kennedy followed state law properly, if the West petition had been compromised by Trump’s allies, and if the Constitution Party was denied access because of questions regarding its chairman’s stated home address.

According to state law, new political parties must be certified before July. Alan Hirsch, the chairman of the Elections Board, has said that he will be returning to the petitioners in the next few weeks to provide a final response. He said that the results of the vote on Wednesday do not necessarily mean that the candidates will not be on the November ballot.

Hirsch: “We will follow the path wherever it leads us.”

North Carolina Republican Party released a statement saying that the board did not have a valid reason for blocking the parties. The state GOP accused the board of trying to aid Biden after the vote.

Matt Mercer is the communications director for the Democratic Party. He said, “The majority of State Board of Elections has shown that there are no actions too outrageous or radical to protect Joe Biden.”

Michael Whatley said that the decision of the board betrays public trust.

Whatley added: “We will consider all options to resolve this problem.”

Trump won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential elections by 1.3 percentage point — or about 75,000 votes. The Biden campaign said that it would invest heavily in North Carolina in order to try and reverse the president’s fortunes there in the coming elections.

North Carolina voters want more options than just Trump and Biden. Third-party candidates would take votes from both candidates.

A WRAL News survey in March found that the majority of North Carolina voters would prefer to see the major parties nominate different candidates. In April, a Quinnipiac University survey found that almost one out of five North Carolina voters would vote for a third party candidate instead of supporting Trump or Biden.

Morning Consult’s poll from May showed that Kennedy and West would have a negative impact on Biden and Trump. The results were 3 to 4 points. In a poll conducted head-to-head, 49% of respondents backed Trump while 42% backed Biden. In a poll that included third-party candidates, 46% of respondents supported Trump while 36% supported Biden.

Questioning the purpose of a party

Candidates sought to gain access to North Carolina’s voting by forming new political parties.

We the People Party, the political party that is associated with Kennedy the nephew of the former Democratic president John F. Kennedy.

Justice for All is the political group associated with West, a left-wing intellectual, who taught at Harvard University, Yale, Princeton, and other prominent universities.

Terry is an anti-abortion activist who was nominated by the Constitution Party, a right-wing party. Don Blankenship was the nominee of the Constitution Party on the 2020 ballot. It received 7,549 out of 5.5 million votes cast.

Requests for comments on the voting were not immediately responded to by the representatives of the parties.

Democrats on the state election board were concerned that the We the People Party was only seeking certification to put Kennedy on the ballot, circumventing the laws of the state for individual candidates.

It’s easier for new parties in North Carolina to get on the ballot than for individual candidates.

Candidates for the presidency must collect signatures of 1.5% of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial elections. This year, that is about 83,000 people. Aspiring parties can, however, qualify for consideration if they collect signatures from 0.25% of the voters who participated in most recent gubernatorial elections — which is about 14,000 people.

Before Wednesday’s voting, the North Carolina Democratic Party lodged an objection to the We the People Petition.

The Kennedy Campaign, rather than creating an organization of voters to nominate and elect candidates who would promote a common set policy goals (i.e. create a political party), created We the People solely to avoid the requirements of state law that require an independent candidate to be placed on the ballot, Anderson Clayton, the chair of the state Democratic Party, wrote in an email to the elections board dated June 5.

We the People Party collected around 18,000 signatures. Democratic elections board members questioned Ceara Foley about the script provided to volunteers by the Kennedy campaign.

The script stated that the petition’s purpose was to form a new party and place Kennedy’s name in the North Carolina ballot. The script also encourages volunteers to inform voters that Kennedy will be running for president as an independent candidate.

Foley stated that the group, its volunteers and their plans for a Saturday convention clearly expressed their intent to form a new party. Siobhan Miller, a Democratic Board member, questioned if We the People did enough to differentiate itself as a party that could field candidates at all levels of the ballot.

Millen stated, “I think we should deliberate carefully before certifying another party who doesn’t have an obvious purpose.”

West and Justice for All

Board members have reacted to West’s petition.