Ballot Access Breaking News: Kennedy On the Ballot in North Carolina, As ‘We the People’ Party Is Recognized There

By Leah Watson, Breaking News Reporter, The Kennedy Beacon

On July 16, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) voted 4-1 to formally recognize We the People North Carolina as an official party. That has enabled presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to achieve ballot access in the state. 

North Carolina voters will now have another option in the November presidential election. 

Qualification for the ballot in North Carolina as an independent presidential candidate requires 83,188 signatures, according to Ballotpedia. However, by aligning with a minor party, Kennedy has avoided this time-consuming and expensive process. To qualify as a minor party in North Carolina, We the People was required to submit only 13,865 valid signatures of registered and qualified voters. 

Last month, the NCSBE decided to deny We the People ballot access pending a further investigation into the validity of its petition signatures. According to the Asheville Citizen Times, the investigation “questioned whether signees were aware that the petition created an entirely new party or if it was solely to get RFK Jr. on the ballot.”

But now, with that NCSBE vote, that denial is no longer valid.

On Tuesday, after an internal investigation, the NCSBE approved We the People North Carolina. Independent presidential candidate Cornel West, who also sought ballot access through his party, Justice for All, was denied ballot access by the NCSBE, which cited concerns about signature collection fraud. 

Democratic Party-aligned Clear Choice Action, a political organization, complained against the approval of We the People North Carolina and accused the minor party of being a sham orchestrated by Republican operatives. “Both of these candidates are attempting to play by a different set of rules than everyone else, and exempt themselves from the signature threshold required for an independent presidential candidate,” said the founder of Clear Choice Action, Pete Kavanaugh, as reported in the Asheville Citizen Times.

In addition to nominating Kennedy and Nicole Shanahan for president and vice president, We the People has nominated Jeff Scott for state senator in the 40th district and Mark Ortiz for Rowan County commissioner. Ballot Access News reports that “if Kennedy polls as much as 2%, the We the People party will then be qualified for the 2026 and 2028 elections.”

According to the campaign, Kennedy is on the ballot in 10 states and has submitted the required signatures in 14 others. Additionally, Kennedy has collected enough signatures and is ready to submit them in four more states. This is mapped on the website 270toWin.

States in beige are those where Kennedy is officially on the ballot. States in gold are those where he has submitted signatures. States in pink or light blue are those where Kennedy has not yet completed signature collection or has yet to submit signatures.

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