>>21052440I still don't get why he rannot even a little bit
2/2
“The bottom line is he is eligible for more electoral votes than both Presidents Trump and Biden,” Spear wrote in an emailKEK. The campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on May 29, alleging that Biden, Trump, their respective campaigns and CNN “colluded” to leave Kennedy off the debate stage, but the FEC disputes typically take a while to resolve.In news releases, Kennedy’s campaign also has claimed ballot access it has not achieved. The campaign first claimed it had “surpassed eligibility” in a June 7 news release, listing nine states where Kennedy was “officially” on the ballot: Utah, Michigan, California, Delaware, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Texas, South Carolina and Florida. However, officials in Florida, California, Hawaii, Texas, and South Carolina told The Post that, while Kennedy has either submitted petitions or been nominated by a minor party with ballot access, their certification process is not yet complete.
In Florida, Kennedy has been nominated by the Reform Party, a centrist party created by Ross Perot in 1995, but the near-defunct political party had lost its ballot access last year. It has been reinstated by the state, but party officials need to complete the paperwork to get Kennedy on the ballot, according to Reform Party national chair Nicholas Hensley. Hensley said they expect to meet the September deadline to get Kennedy on the ballot in Florida, which is far past CNN’s June 20 debate deadline. The assertion that Kennedy is on the ballot in the state has been left out of future press releases issued by the campaign but remains on the website.“I think someone got ahead of the horse,” Hensley said.
In South Carolina, election officials said the Alliance Party — a minor party with ballot access in the state — nominated Kennedy, but they also received petitions submitted on Kennedy’s behalf to run as an independent. Despite verbalizing his acceptance of the Alliance Party’s nomination, state election officials said they haven’t received written confirmation of his acceptance, meaning Kennedy isn’t officially on the ballot, as he claims.
“We anticipate him being on the ballot, but we can’t say for certain,” said John Michael Catalano, South Carolina State Election Commission spokesman. Seeking ballot access as an independent candidate is cumbersome, costing a large sum of money to attain by signature collectors in many states as well as lawyers to adhere to a complex patchwork of election laws that vary state by state. Kennedy has sued election officials in Nevada, New York and Idaho, arguing the rules are unfair or illegal. In New York, for instance, where his lawyer said the campaign spent $1.1 million on gathering signatures, Kennedy’s campaign faces a slew of challenges from Democratic groups. Those groups allege Kennedy’s petition should be disqualified because he gave an address that isn’t his home and tens of thousands of the signatures were illegible or didn’t belong to New York voters. The Kennedy campaign has not responded to all of the allegations, but told media outlets that Kennedy considers the New York home his legitimate address.
Third-party candidates would typically be advantaged by the late summer deadlines for ballot access, allowing them time to continue to organize even after major-party candidates are nominated, said Bernard Tamas, a political science professor at Valdosta State University in Georgia and author of “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.” Kennedy has said he has strategically delayed some petitions to avoid challenges.
“His problem is, for the debate, it’s so fast that it’s not set up for him to get on,” Tamas said. “It’s just a moment that’s not working for him.” Kennedy has sought out easier paths to getting on the ballot, including seeking the nominations of minor parties that already have ballot access in states or creating his own minor party. However, that has come with its own challenges and confusion….
Meanwhile, election officials in Hawaii say they have not received the nomination of Kennedy’s We the People party which Kennedy recently formed in an effort to get on more ballots. “He may be the presumptive nominee through the We The People party which has qualified to field candidates in the 2024 elections, but we cannot say who will be on the ballot until we’ve received nominees from a qualified political party,” Aulii Tenn, spokeswoman for the state’s office of elections, wrote in an email. On Monday, Kennedy’s campaign declared yet another state it had achieved ballot access in, Mississippi, where his own party nominated him, according to a news release. But, in the same email, Kennedy’s campaign acknowledged the party had not yet submitted the paperwork to the state.
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