With less than a month left to collect signatures in Nevada, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a new petition Thursday with the Nevada Secretary of State's office, despite previously filing a lawsuit against the office in an attempt to secure its place in the state. paper
The independent candidate filed a lawsuit against the Nevada office last week, two months after learning that the campaign's collection of more than 15,000 signatures in the state would be invalidated because the petition circulated among voters does not include a vice presidential selection, which is required by state law to get on the ballot. Now, Kennedy has filed an amended petition, listing his running mate Nicole Shanahan, in case the lawsuit filed by the campaign does not result in a victory for Kennedy.
While an office clerk misinformed Kennedy campaign in March that it did not need a vice presidential pick for the petition, the office maintained that the campaign received clear guidelines for ballot access in a memo the same month.
Kennedy's campaign has claimed the Democratic Party invented a new rule to invalidate his Nevada signatures, and in an email to the office Friday, Paul Rossi, the campaign's senior ballot access attorney of Kennedy, said: “The SOS has reversed. [its] position”.
However, Nevada has required independent candidates to name a vice presidential running mate in their petitions since 1993.
“Given the conduct of the SOS, I want and hope that it will be approved today” in the event that “the federal lawsuit does not quickly grant the expected injunction against the new position of the secretary on the names of vice presidents in the petition,” he wrote Rossi in his email after filing the amended petition.
The Kennedy campaign has until July 5 to submit new signatures to the office, which can be collected using the amended petition that now includes Shanahan's name, the office told Rossi on Friday.
With less than a month to go, the campaign will work to collect approximately 10,000 new signatures in Nevada as the petition continues.
Michael Arno, who runs a petition signature gathering company and has worked on ballot access for several independent candidates and the No Labels effort, said gathering many signatures and more in that time frame it should be “very easy”.
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar previously said his office is prepared to take on Kennedy in court.
“Nevada has a rich history of independent and third-party candidates for office. Each of these candidates gained access to the ballot by following the law. We look forward to seeing Mr. Kennedy's team in court,” Aguilar said in a told CBS News. last week.
As Kennedy pushes to gain access to the polls in Nevada, some Democratic Party leaders worry he could divert votes from President Biden in the key battleground state. Mr. Biden won Nevada by more than 30,000 votes in 2020 against former President Donald Trump.
Somos PAC, a left-leaning Latino-focused political organization, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Nevada to intervene in the Kennedy campaign's lawsuit.
“Voter access laws are an essential pillar of our community and our democracy that safeguards voters and ensures they are informed about who they apply to be on the ballot in November. If the RFK Jr. cared about working Nevadans, they would put all their efforts into collecting signatures and going through the proper channels to get them on the ballot while there is still plenty of time,” said Melissa Morales, president and founder of Somos PAC.
Supporters of the late Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader and Nevada native, have turned their attention to Kennedy and hope to slow his door-knocking efforts in the state.
Reid, who died in 2021, was known for political organizing and voter mobilization, and his coalition of voters, known as the “Reid Machine,” played a crucial role in several Democratic victories across the state, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's victory in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in Nevada.
“Does anyone really know why RFK is running for president? This is the definition of a vanity run that could have very serious ramifications for the country,” said Kristin Ramos, a former Reid adviser. “Nevada is a must-win state for both campaigns, and now it's hard to tell who RFK is playing spoiler.”
