Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing to remove himself from the Wisconsin presidential ballot after the battleground state's election commission voted to keep him on it.
In the lawsuit, filed Sept. 3 in Dane County Circuit Court, attorneys for Kennedy accused the elections commission of discriminating against him over the ballot withdrawal request.
"Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues," Kennedy said in a speech.
A week before Kennedy filed his lawsuit, the three Republican members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to remove him from the ballot, but the motion failed in a 3-3 deadlock after the three Democrat members said state law requires that anyone who files nomination papers and qualifies must stay on the ballot, except in the event of death.
After the failed motion, two Republican commissioners joined the Democrats in a 5-1 vote to approve ballot placement for third-party and independent candidates, including Kennedy.
Kennedy's attorneys disagreed that candidates must be kept on the ballot unless they die, arguing that the state has no compelling interest to enforce such a requirement.
For now, Kennedy remains a presidential candidate on the ballot in Wisconsin, alongside the Green Party's Jill Stein and fellow independents Cornel West and Shiva Ayyadurai.
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