POUGHKEEPSIE – A lawsuit filed in Dutchess County Supreme Court on Monday, June 10, seeks to keep Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Vice-president candidate Nicole Shanahan, off of the ballot in New York for November’s election.
Kennedy formed the “We the People” political party to run as an independent candidate in November’s Presidential election.
The lawsuit alleges that the nominating petitions filed by the independent “We the People” political party designating Kennedy, the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and Shanahan, a California attorney are a “deliberate falsehood” because Kennedy does not reside in Katonah, New York as the petitions claim. According to the plaintiffs, Kennedy admittedly resides in Los Angeles, California. The lawsuit says Kennedy, the founder of Riverkeeper and former Democrat, is using the address of a friend in Katonah to portray himself as a New Yorker. “This deception not only falsely presents Kennedy as a hometown candidate, it also conceals from the voters of New York, among other things, a serious constitutional problem,” with the campaign.
The lawsuit, filed by attorney Howard Colton and the law firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink, claims that a Constitutional provision says when a “Presidential Candidate and Vice Presidential Candidate on the same ticket are residents of the same State, the ticket is not eligible for any of that State’s Electoral College votes.” Both candidates according to the lawsuit reside in California, which has 54 Electoral College votes, which is the largest block in the country, and the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is not entitled to those votes.
The lawsuit also questions the validity of more than 100,000 of the signatures on the petitions for a variety of reasons.
Acting Dutchess County Supreme Court Justice Edward McLoughlin has recused himself from hearing the case for personal reasons.
The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a Mid Hudson News request for comment.
