Supporters of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gather at a rally outside the Supreme Court on March 18. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
A New York judge ruled Monday that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on the state’s ballot in November after he falsely claimed that he lived at a friend’s house in New York on his qualifying petitions.
While Kennedy had claimed he lived in a spare bedroom of his friend’s Katonah, N.Y. home, he had stayed only one night in the home last month after a lawsuit was filed against him disputing that he lived there, Albany County Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba wrote in her decision.
The ruling comes after the Democratic-aligned Clear Choice super PAC challenged Kennedy’s application for ballot access in New York and other states over alleged inaccuracies in his paperwork.
The decision, if upheld, would mark Kennedy’s first loss in his effort to appear on state ballots, and it could be a warning sign for his other state petitions as his campaign listed the same address in all of his election filings nationwide.
In a statement, Kennedy decried the decision as anti-democratic. “The Democrats are showing contempt for democracy,” he said. “They aren’t confident they can win at the ballot box, so they are trying to stop voters from having a choice. We will appeal and we will win.”
Clear Choice and the Democratic National Committee celebrated the decision Monday, noting inaccuracies and inconsistencies in Kennedy’s statements during his testimony.
“Today’s ruling makes clear that Mr. Kennedy lied about his residency and provided a false address on his filing papers and candidate petitions in New York, intentionally misleading election officials and betraying voters’ trust,” the PAC said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Democrats lost a separate case in North Carolina on Monday in which they claimed that Kennedy’s political party should not receive ballot access as it was a vehicle for Kennedy to avoid strict ballot requirements imposed on independent candidates.
