RFK Jr. Sues Nevada Secretary of State Over Ballot Access

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Facts

• Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar over his refusal to certify the candidate's petition signatures, which are needed to get on the state's 2024 ballot.¹
• While RFK Jr. didn't choose his now running mate Nicole Shanahan until March, his lawsuit claims that Aguilar's office approved his signatures in January. However, Aguilar's office in March still claimed that signatures were invalid.²
• Kennedy, who chose the California philanthropist as his vice presidential running mate a few weeks after declaring for the ballot, is arguing that Aguilar has violated both his First Amendment constitutional rights and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.³
• As of now, Kennedy has about two months to collect the necessary 10K signatures if he wants to qualify for the November election. To do so in Nevada, state law says you must, alongside a vice presidential candidate, submit a 'declaration of candidacy and a petition of candidacy' by early August.⁴
• However, the lawsuit claims that Nevada's law violates the equal protection clause because it requires independent candidates to declare a vice president before candidates from the major parties have to.¹
• Kennedy's ballot efforts are also aimed at gaining him access to the upcoming presidential debates, which would make him the first independent candidate to do so in over 30 years. He most recently filed in New York, for which he collected over 135K signatures, or three times the amount necessary.²

Sources: ¹The Hill, ²Forbes, ³Associated Press and ⁴The Nevada Independent.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Kennedy24. Aguilar's about-face on this issue is purely political and has nothing to do with the law. After explicitly approving RFK Jr.'s ballot petition in January, and then issuing no concerns for two months, he abruptly changed his mind in March. Kennedy is a serious third-party contender whom some polls show beating both Biden and Trump one-on-one. If anyone has a right to be on the ballot it's the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by New York Times. Kennedy is omitting the fact that his campaign is deliberately taking a long time to file for ballots so that his competitors can't challenge his questionable petitions. For a candidate who says he's eager to get on the debate stage, it's very odd that he's so far only applied for a handful with the CNN debate just weeks away. He should know that ballot applications take time, but he's chosen to procrastinate and complain instead of starting early.

Predictions