WPR:

The state Supreme Court has rejected an effort by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to remove his name from Wisconsin’s presidential ballot.

In a ruling issued Friday afternoon, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Kennedy’s campaign had failed to show a lower court ruling keeping him in play should be overturned.

Kennedy filed thousands of signatures on Aug. 6 to get on Wisconsin’s presidential ballot. Three weeks later, on Aug. 23, he suspended his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

That same day, he asked to have his name removed from the ballot in Wisconsin and other battleground states, expressing a concern that he could play spoiler for Trump….

In a concurring opinion, written by Justice Rebecca Bradley and joined by Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, both conservatives, Bradley said the “ramifications in this case are immense.”

“Voters may cast their ballots in favor of a candidate who withdrew his candidacy, thereby losing their right to cast a meaningful vote. Ballots listing a non-candidate mislead voters and may skew a presidential election. In this case, the damage to voter participation in electoral democracy is real,” she wrote.

AJC:

A pair of court rulings in the span of a few hours disqualified two longshot candidates from Georgia’s presidential race. In a twist, though, both could still appear on the ballot in this battleground state.

In separate rulings on Wednesday, two Fulton County judges voided Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Claudia De la Cruz and independent Cornel West from Georgia’s ballot. But Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. wrote in his ruling that it’s too close to the election to strike West’s name. Instead, he ordered officials to post notices at polling sites that West is not a valid contender.

In De la Cruz’s case, Judge Emily Richardson said officials should take “all steps” to reprint ballots where feasible.

Votes for either candidate won’t be counted, even if their names still appear on the ballot, the Associated Press reported.

The dual rulings were a blow to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who in August decided to include their names on the ballot despite legal challenges from Democrats arguing they failed to follow the rules.

Politico:

Two New Jersey counties are on the verge of settling a constitutional challenge to New Jersey’s controversial “county line” ballot structure after a four-year legal battle, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.

The upcoming settlements with the plaintiffs suggest that New Jersey’s decades-old ballot structure that has given a major advantage to its county political organizations on primary ballots may be on the way out for good.

CNN:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name will be removed from the North Carolina ballot, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

In a 4-3 decision, with both of the Democratic members and one Republican dissenting, the GOP-controlled court wrote that having accurate ballots is more important than the costs and delays that will come from having to reprint the state’s ballots.

Absentee ballots in North Carolina were supposed to start going out on Friday but were held amid the legal fight over Kennedy’s removal after he dropped his independent bid for president. According to the state board of elections, absentee voting could now be delayed nearly two weeks while ballots are reprinted.

“We acknowledge that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require considerable time and effort by our election officials and significant expense to the State,” the majority wrote. “But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution expects us to incur to protect voters’ fundamental right to vote their conscience and have that vote count.”…

Democratic Justice Allison Riggs criticized both the appeals court and Kennedy in a blistering dissent.

“The magnitude of the harm wrought by the Court of Appeals’ order, both to voters of the state who have been guaranteed by their elected legislature sixty days in which to receive and cast absentee ballots and to the overworked and underpaid public servants working as election administrators in a time when such service has subjected those public servants to harassment and peril… is egregious and unjustified,” Riggs wrote.

Riggs accused Kennedy of wanting to “have his cake and eat it, too.”

“Forcing the state to put his name on the ballot, creating for the state costs both practical and legal, he now wants to reprint millions of ballots because he has decided to suspend his campaign without actually ending it or foreclosing the possibility of his election,” Riggs wrote.

The decision to remove Kennedy from the ballot came the day as the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that his name must remain on the state’s ballot. Kennedy is also challenging the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s decision to keep him on the ballot in that Midwestern battleground.

Order here. The order avoids the legal question of whether Kennedy could remove his name from the ballot, and instead argues that Kennedy wrongly sought mandamus (i.e., there’s no clear legal duty for the Secretary of State to remove his name), because the statute is, at best, silent about removal. Justices Zahra and Viviano offer a “blistering dissent,” per NBC News, including: “This sort of formalism would be unique in our law, which eschews reliance on the title of relief sought and looks at the substance of the request. And in any event, Kennedy sought injunctive relief here, one of the many things the majority conveniently overlooks.”

WaPo:

A state appeals panel upended election preparations in North Carolina on Friday, ordering a halt to the distribution of mail ballots in the battleground state after granting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request that his name be removed from contention for the presidency.

Friday was the deadline for local election officials to mail ballots to the roughly 130,000 North Carolinians who had requested them so far. County offices had been preparing for weeks with ballot design, printing orders and envelope preparation.

That effort immediately stopped under instructions from the State Board of Elections following the court ruling, and officials estimated it will take a minimum of two weeks and more than $1 million — borne by cash-strapped county offices — to design, print and prepare new ballots.

An anonymous three-judge panel of the North Carolina State Court of Appeals offered no explanation for its decision but appeared to side with Kennedy’s argument, on First Amendment grounds, that he should not be forced to appear on the ballot….

Officials said they plan to appeal in Michigan and North Carolina. In Michigan, the decision could affect what is expected to be a close race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Friday was the deadline for making ballot changes, but they were not yet being mailed out, so the effect on ballot production is not expected to be as disruptive as in North Carolina.

AP:

A Michigan judge ruled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must remain on the November presidential ballot, dealing a blow to his crusade to strategically remove his ticket from the battleground state.

Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump in August. Since then, he has sought to withdraw his name in states — like Michigan — where the race could be close. At the same time, he is trying to remain on the ballot in states where he is unlikely to make a difference between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris….

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher P. Yates concluded that the secretary of state rightly rejected Kennedy’s request to be removed from the ballot.

“Elections are not just games, and the Secretary of State (SOS) is not obligated to honor the whims of candidates for public office,” Yates said in his opinion and order.