Presidential candidates campaigning as alternatives to Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump were denied access to North Carolina’s ballot on Wednesday — a move that comes amid pressure from Democrats who questioned the legitimacy of the candidates’ parties, and amid allegations by the GOP that Democrats are trying to tilt the election.

In a party-line vote, the North Carolina State Board of Elections rejected initial bids for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Constitution Party candidate Randall Terry to place their names on the November ballot, saying they want more time to review their petitions.

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The board’s two Republican members voted to place the candidates on the ballot, while the board’s three Democratic members rejected those motions.

The decision hangs a question mark over the November ballot in this battleground state. The decision — if it stands — could mean less competition for Trump and Biden in a state where presidential candidates have historically had small margins of victory.

Democrats raised different issues with each petition. They questioned whether Kennedy followed the proper procedure under state law, whether the West petition was compromised by Trump allies, and whether the Constitution Party should be denied access amid questions about its chairman’s stated address.

State law requires new political parties to be certified by July. Alan Hirsch, chairman of the elections board, said he plans to circle back with the petitioners to give them a final answer in the coming weeks. Wednesday’s vote doesn’t necessarily mean the candidates won’t end up on the ballot in November, he said.

“We're going to follow this wherever this leads us,” Hirsch said.

The North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement, saying the board had no valid reason to block the parties from the ballot. After the vote, the state GOP accused board members of attempting to help Biden.

“The State Board of Elections' majority have shown yet again there is no action too outrageous or too radical they won't take to protect Joe Biden and Democrats," said Matt Mercer, the party’s communications director.

Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the board’s decision betrays the public’s trust.

“This is one more example of Democrats fracturing trust in America’s democratic institutions and flouting the electoral process in their increasingly desperate attempts to hold onto political power,” Whatley said, adding: “We are leaving all options on the table to remedy this issue."

Trump won North Carolina by 1.3 percentage points — about 75,000 votes — in the 2020 presidential election. The Biden campaign has said it plans to invest heavily in North Carolina to try to reverse the president’s fortunes in the Tar Heel State in the coming election.

North Carolina voters have signaled that they’d like to have options besides Trump and Biden — and third-party options would pull votes away from both candidates.

In March, a WRAL News poll found the majority of likely North Carolina voters said they’d prefer the two major parties to nominate different candidates. And in April, a Quinnipiac University poll found that nearly one in every five North Carolina voters said they’d vote for a third-party candidate rather than supporting either Trump or Biden.

A Morning Consult poll published in May found that the inclusion of Kennedy and West could diminish support for Biden and Trump by 3 to 4 percentage points. In a head-to-head poll, 49% of respondents supported Trump, while 42% supported Biden. When third-party candidates were thrown into the mix, 46% supported Trump and 36% supported Biden.

Questioning a party’s purpose

Each of candidate sought access to North Carolina’s ballot by applying for new political parties:

  • The We the People Party is the political party associated with Kennedy, the nephew of former Democratic President John F. Kennedy.
    • Justice For All is the political party associated with West, the left-wing intellectual who has taught at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other prominent universities.
      • The Constitution Party is the right-wing party that has nominated Terry, an anti-abortion activist. The Constitution Party was on the 2020 ballot and its nominee, Don Blankenship, received 7,549 votes of the 5.5 million cast.

        Representatives of the parties didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the vote.

        Democrats on the state elections board expressed concern that the We the People Party sought certification only to get Kennedy on the ballot — circumventing the state’s laws for individual candidates.

        In North Carolina, it’s easier for new political parties to gain access to the ballot than it is for individual candidates.

        Individual candidates for president must gather signatures from 1.5% of the voters who participated in the most recent gubernatorial election which, this year, means about 83,000 signatures. Aspiring political parties, however, can qualify for consideration by gathering signatures of 0.25% of voters who participated in the most recent gubernatorial election — or about 14,000 people.

        The North Carolina Democratic Party filed an objection to the We the People petition prior to Wednesday’s vote.

        “Rather than forming an organization of voters for the purpose of nominating and electing candidates who would advance a common set of policy goals (i.e., creating a political party), the Kennedy Campaign created We the People with the singular purpose of avoiding the requirements in state law to place an independent candidate on the ballot,” Anderson Clayton, the state Democratic party chair, wrote in a June 5 letter to the elections board.

        The We the People Party collected about 18,000 signatures. Democratic elections board members asked Ceara Foley, who works for the Kennedy campaign and serves as chair of the party, about a script it provided to volunteers.

        The script said the purpose of the petition was to create a new political party and get Kennedy’s name on the North Carolina ballot. It also suggests volunteers to tell voters that Kennedy is running as an independent for the office of president.

        Foley said the group and its volunteers clearly stated their intention to start a new political party, adding that it plans to hold a convention Saturday. Siobhan Millen, a Democratic board member, questioned whether We the People had done enough to distinguish itself as a political party that can field candidates up and down the ballot.

        “I just think we need to deliberate carefully before we certify another party that doesn't have a clear purpose,” Millen said.

        Foley issued a statement to WRAL Thursday, saying she hopes the board will carry out its investigation in good faith.

        “Our volunteer led effort to form a new party meticulously followed and fulfilled the requirements of the state,” Foley said. “We trust the board will carry out their commitment and duty to respond to the will of We The People, despite any partisan influence, and certify our party so we can serve the interests of our NC constituents.

        West and Justice For All

        With West’s petition, board members said they worried that volunteers misled signatories about the purpose of the group.

        The Justice for All Party’s petition, meanwhile, “is littered with unregistered voters, illegible and missing signatures, blatant statutory violations, and other indicia of fraud,” Clear Choice Action wrote to the North Carolina elections board on June 13.

        During Wednesday’s elections board meeting, members played a video posted to social media by a reporter for The Washington Post. The social media post said the video showed Scott Presler, a pro-Trump activist, asking people at a Trump rally in North Carolina to sign a petition to get West on the state’s ballot.

        “This helps take away votes from Joe Biden,” the man in the video can be heard saying in the video.

        Italo Medelius, chair of Justice For All Party of North Carolina, said the man in the video misrepresented his group's goals.
        “I can’t control what Mr. Presler does. That is not the intent of the party,” he said of the claim that the party aims to undermine Biden, specifically.

        Medelius said Justice For All allowed other groups to help gather signatures.

        “We couldn’t really stop people from collecting signatures,” Medelius said. “We didn’t really see anything wrong with folks having access to the petition that wanted to get us on the ballot.”

        Jeff Carmon, a Democratic board member, said outside groups and volunteers could have compromised Justice For All’s message to interested voters.

        “If I’m understanding you correctly, your potential party currently doesn’t have the control in place to manage the signature-gathering process,” Carmon asked.

        Medelius said he believed Justice For All still qualified to have its name and candidate on North Carolina’s ballot.

        “It was a mess,” he said. “I will completely say that. But it’s a mess that we’re proud of. We did this as volunteers and … we do have the systems in place to meet the statutory requirements of the law.”

        Kevin Lewis, a Republican board member, told Medelius that he thinks his group may have been the victim of “a political hit job,” referring to actors “outside the State Board of Elections.”

        Medelius issued a statement to WRAL Thursday, saying he’s holding out hope the board will place each of the petitioners on the ballot.

        “It’s important to remember that this is not a final decision by the North Carolina board of elections,” he said. “However, I cannot say that I am surprised by the direction that this is going.”