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Robert F Kennedy Jr was too late to testify in court against a challenge from Democrats attempting to block him from the ballot in Pennsylvania.
Attorneys for two Democratic activists challenging Kennedy’s spot on the ballot said in a Harrisburg courtroom on Tuesday that Kennedy’s candidacy paperwork has a fake home address. Similar allegations are being heard in other state courts.
They also argued that the third-party candidate hasn’t gathered the required number of signatures.
Citing a canceled flight from Boston to Philadelphia the evening before, Kennedy showed up an hour and 40 minutes late. Commonwealth Court Judge Lori Dumas had earlier decided to continue without his testimony.
Just after his arrival, the hearing was adjourned without the judge indicating when she would rule on the matter.
Kennedy could snag votes from Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump if he were to appear on the ballot in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground with 19 electoral votes. Trump won the state in 2016 but President Joe Biden won it back in 2020.
The attorney for Kennedy slammed the judge’s move to continue without the candidate’s testimony. Kennedy claimed that the Democrats are trying to block the rights of tens of millions of voters.
“To me, it’s a sad devolution of this party that the only way that they can win elections is to keep its opponents off the debating stage, off the ballots, and use lawfare to try to win elections rather than campaigning,” he said outside the courthouse.
“I’ll be on the ballot in every state,” he added.
The Kennedy campaign has called the challenge “frivolous” and Kennedy lawyer Paul Rossi said that a state shouldn’t be in the business of banning a candidate from its ballot because of a residency argument.
He said that it would lead to a “patchwork” of state court rulings removing some candidates from ballots, citing the March Supreme Court ruling to reinstate Trump on primary ballots following state attempts to use the 14th Amendment to have him removed.
Rossi added that a federal court ruling from 2016 which ordered a lowering of the signature requirements for candidates from smaller parties should also be used in Kennedy’s case.
One of the attorneys for the activists challenging Kennedy’s presence on the ballot, Tim Ford, said that Kennedy had filed petitions that violated state law and that his late appearance “shows a total disregard for our process here in Pennsylvania and a disrespect for the voters who have to make the decision of who they’re going to vote for for president.”
Ford argued that Kennedy hasn’t shown that the signature ruling should apply in this case and that the “patchwork” argument references a federal constitutional case and cannot be used in a case where the state of Pennsylvania is setting the rules governing who can appear on its ballots.
Kennedy is battling challenges in other states as well, including Georgia and New York.
Last week, a New York judge rejected his nominating petitions because the listed address was a “sham.” Kennedy is appealing the decision.
Kennedy has listed his address as being in the Empire State, but those challenging his presence on the ballot say that he really lives in Los Angeles, California.
Rossi argued that Kennedy partly pointed to the New York address to adhere to the 12th Amendment which states that a president and vice president shouldn’t be from the same state – Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan is a Californian.
The attorney said that Kennedy is registered to vote in New York and that he’s set to return to live in the state.
The Kennedy campaign has claimed to have collected the required signatures to appear on the ballots in all 50 states and that he’s currently officially on the ballot in 22 of them, including key states like North Carolina and Michigan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
