Supreme Court rejects RFK Jr.'s effort to get off the ballot in Michigan, Wisconsin

WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Robert F. Kennedy's request that he be taken off the presidential ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, two battleground states where Kennedy does not want to draw votes away from former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.

Kennedy, who endorsed Trump after ending his own campaign in August, missed the deadline for withdrawing from the ballot in those states. But he argued the deadlines are unconstitutional because they are different than the rules for candidates running on the Democratic or Republican ticket.

Lower courts rejected that argument and also said there wasn't enough time to change the ballots. Voting is already underway.

"The absurdity of this proposal is evident on its face," Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul argued about Kennedy's suggestion that his name be covered over with stickers. "Today, it is not possible to affix tiny stickers to the ballots remaining with clerks, and hundreds of thousands of ballots have been sent to voters, with many already returned."

Likewise, in Michigan, more than 1.5 million absentee ballots have been mailed in. Even if time remained to reprint and distribute new ballots, vote counting machines have already been programmed to handle the existing ballots and can't now be reprogrammed, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told the Supreme Court.

Nessel also argued that Kennedy's stated concern about not confusing voters is undercut by the fact that he tried to get off the ballot in some states soon after asking the Supreme Court to get him on the ballot in New York.

The Supreme Court rejected that request last month.

Wisconsin and Michigan are two of the seven states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential election.

When Kennedy suspended his campaign, he said his name would remain on the ballot and he encouraged his supporters to vote for him in most states.

But he said he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states “where my presence would be a spoiler.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court rejects RFK Jr.'s effort to get off ballot in MI and WI