No, that it required the reprinting of ballots is absolutely relevant. By state law, the SBOE can refuse a late request to take a candidate’s name off of the ballot if impractical, and election officials are required to mail out ballots by Sept 6th. Kennedy withdrew five days after the deadline set by the SBOE to take his name off the ballot (and didn’t even announce he intended to suspend his campaign until after that deadline), so the SBOE was well within its statutory power to deny his request in the interest of ensuring that ballots were mailed on time, as required by law. The NC supreme court ruled that the state law didn’t matter and ballots had to be reprinted, which meant that they were not mailed as required by law. There is no difference between this state law and the one the court already chose to ignore.
3 Likes
