Kennedy cleared for Maine ballot after challenge dropped

(The Center Square) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will likely appear on Maine ballots in November after a challenge to his nominating petitions was dropped.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced that a hearing set for Wednesday had been canceled, with the challenge withdrawn by the filer, clearing what is likely a final hurdle to get on the ballot with Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in November.

James Stretch, a Topsham resident, had challenged Kennedy’s spot on the ballot, claiming that the nearly 5,900 signatures gathered by his campaign listed his incorrect address, included people who were not registered Maine voters or whose names didn’t match voter registration records or were illegible, among other allegations.

Stretch, who worked as a staffer on President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, didn’t give a reason for dropping the ballot challenge in the one-page letter he submitted to Bellow’s office earlier this week.

Bellows is still considering a challenge to Harvard University professor Cornel West’s presidential nominating petitions from several Maine voters who say they contain errors, including duplicate or crossed-out signatures and address information that doesn’t match voter registration records. A hearing on the challenges was expected to be held on Wednesday.

Under state law, a registered Maine voter can challenge the validity of candidate petitions. This is the same challenge process that initiated the debate about former President Donald Trump’s primary ballot eligibility in Maine late last year.

The likelihood that Kennedy will remain on the November ballot alongside Trump and Harris means Maine will use ranked-choice voting for the presidential race, as there will be more than two candidates.

The ranked-choice system requires voters to list candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets 50% of the votes, the candidate who got the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are reallocated and re-tabulated until someone wins a majority.

Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, launched his independent bid for the White House in October, abandoning plans to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge then-incumbent President Biden, who has since dropped out of the race.

The lawyer and anti-vaccine activist vowed to get on the ballot in every state by the end of July, but so far, he’s only made it on the ballot in 16 states, including Maine, Utah, Michigan, Delaware, Oklahoma and Tennessee. His campaign says he has collected enough signatures to get on the ballot in 23 other states.

Democrats have filed similar challenges to keep Kennedy off the November ballot amid claims that he would siphon away votes from the vice president and act as a “spoiler candidate” to help Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

On Monday, a New York state judge ruled that Kennedy can’t appear on the state’s ballots in November, siding with a Democratic-backed political action committee that challenged Kennedy’s candidacy over the residence he listed to qualify for the ballot. Kennedy has vowed to appeal the ruling.