Counties remove RFK Jr. from NC ballot, mailing deadline looms for absentee voters

NORTH CAROLINA (WTVD) -- The North Carolina State Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Monday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr's name must be taken off the presidential ballot in our state.

That decision is expected to delay absentee ballots by a few weeks since it already comes at a busy time for counties and their election workers.

It all comes after Kennedy suspended his campaign to endorse Trump, and staying on the ballot could have made him a potential spoiler. It's also why some Democrats believe the court's ruling was political.

"This is an attempt to influence the election for Donald Trump and the North Carolina Supreme Court with their Republican MAGA majority is putting their thumb on the scale for Donald Trump, it's absolutely appalling," Democratic Congressman Wiley Nickel said about the decision.

Republicans meanwhile argue that Democrats changed their position once RFK supported Trump.

"Democrats were trying to interfere in the electoral process the entire time, first they were suing to keep RFK off the ballot, then they wanted to keep him on the ballot based on the state, depending on how it might help or hurt Kamala Harris," says Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign.

But beyond the politics, the last-minute decision means that all 100 counties across the state have to start over, and taxpayers have to foot the bill.

"If you think about all of those things that have to go into a tight compressed timeline, we started months in advance preparing for that. So then to have to switch gears and literally start from scratch," says Olivia McCall, the director of the Wake County Board of Elections.

In Wake County alone, they had to set aside 20,000 already printed absentee ballots into storage, and they now have to recode and reprint ballots for everyone. The quick turnaround also means vendors and printing will cost more.

"We are anticipating anywhere between that 150 to 200 thousand dollars when we actually find out that percentage increase how much it's going to reprint, and then of course we're going to have to scale up and bring in more people," McCall says.

For now, they're working to put together these information packets until they can get some of the new ballots in next week, but it's a race against time.

Although each county is responsible for printing its own absentee ballots and funding the process, the state will decide when all 100 counties can send them out, and so far no new date has been set. But they are also dealing with a September 21st federal deadline when military members need to have their ballots sent out, so the goal is to have the reprints done by then to avoid having to ask for an extension.

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