From Trump To Kennedy, Democrats Don’t Want To Let Anyone On The Ballot But Their Own Candidates
It turns out GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump isn’t the only candidate Democrats are trying to deny ballot access to ahead of the 2024 election.
In a “blink and you’ll miss it” maneuver, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Friday, alleging that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is illegally coordinating with a super PAC backing his candidacy. More specifically, the DNC claimed that the pro-Kennedy PAC known as American Values 2024 “is in the process of making — and the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign accepting — $15 million dollars worth of unlawful, in-kind contributions to get on the ballot in multiple states.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is flouting campaign finance law by outsourcing a critical campaign function — the collection of signatures required to appear on the ballot — to an outside Super PAC that is funded by Donald Trump’s top donor this cycle,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill claimed in a statement.
Democrat operatives have expressed concern in recent weeks that Kennedy’s third-party presidential run could potentially siphon votes from Biden, helping to gift Trump a second term in office.
As Fox News explained, “Kennedy’s campaign must submit paperwork, collect signatures and obtain certification from state election officials” in order to appear on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. American Values pledged in December to spend $10-15 million on signature collection efforts to gain Kennedy ballot access in various states, including Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona.
Kennedy declared his independent presidential run in October after unsuccessfully challenging President Joe Biden for the Democrat 2024 nomination. The DNC threw its support behind the incumbent president early in the primary process and declined to sponsor any debates between Biden, Kennedy, and author Marianne Williamson, who has since dropped out.
The DNC alleged in its complaint that American Values’ collection of signatures in the 12 states listed on its website, as well as those in Colorado and Nevada, violate federal campaign law. The complaint does not, however, detail what specific actions Democrats are requesting the FEC take, other than to seek “monetary, declaratory or injunctive relief as necessary to remedy these violations.” If the FEC determines a violation did, in fact, occur, “a number of penalties could be imposed, including monetary civil penalties,” according to Forbes.
Kennedy’s campaign and American Values have denied the allegations, with a spokesman for the super PAC saying on Friday that Democrats “clearly find democracy inconvenient, want to stifle any dissenting opinions and don’t believe that their candidate can win a free, open and fair election.”
2024 Democrat Election Interference
Kennedy is not the only third-party candidate Democrats are trying to keep off the 2024 ballot.
In October, The New York Times reported that “[p]owerful allies of President Biden are aggressively working to stop third-party and independent presidential candidacies,” who they fear “could cost Democrats an election that many believe will again come down to a few percentage points in key battleground states.” One of their primary targets is No Labels, a centrist political party actively trying to get their candidates on the 2024 ballot.
According to the Times, the president’s “top aides” are using resources from the DNC, “labor unions, abortion rights groups, top donors and [left-wing] advocacy groups” to assist their allies’ efforts in depriving No Labels of “financial and political support.” Biden previously told ProPublica he thinks having a No Labels candidate on the presidential ticket would “help the other guy,” referring to Trump. Other high-profile Democrats have taken their criticisms of No Labels even further, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying in November the party is “perilous to our democracy.”
No Labels recently filed a legal complaint with the Department of Justice, alleging “individuals both inside and outside government” are engaged in a “highly coordinated, conspiratorial, partisan, and often unlawful conspiracy” to thwart their efforts to get on the 2024 ballot.
This Isn’t Democrats’ First Rodeo
Furthermore, the 2024 election cycle isn’t the first instance of Democrat attempts to bar third parties they believe threaten their candidates’ electoral success from the ballot.
In North Carolina, for example, the Green Party submitted “thousands” of signatures to the state Board of Elections for its candidate to appear on the 2022 midterm ballot. Not long afterwards, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — which at the time was represented by Russia collusion hoaxer Marc Elias’s law firm — began reaching out to petition signees to pressure them into retracting their signatures.
As Victoria Marshall wrote in these pages, Matthew Hoh, the Green Party candidate, “received text messages from the DSCC asking him to remove his signature from the petition and saying ‘the Green Party takes votes away from Democrats, which helps Republicans win.’” While North Carolina’s Democrat-controlled elections board “voted not to certify the Green Party,” a federal judge overturned the decision, allowing Hoh to appear on the 2022 ballot.
In her bestselling book, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway documented similar efforts by Democrat-aligned groups to keep left-leaning third-party candidates off the 2020 ballot.
In Wisconsin, for example, the Green Party’s nominee, Howie Hawkins, was denied ballot access by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) on a technicality, despite the party “filing nearly twice the number of signatures necessary to appear on the ballot.” As Hemingway noted, rather than ruling on “whether the election commission had violated the law,” the Wisconsin Supreme Court “came up with a new standard that would get them the result they wanted.”
“According to the court, it was simply too close to the election to reprint ballots,” Hemingway wrote. “The Green Party would be kept off the ballot because the court thought upholding the party’s rights would be inconvenient.”
The ruling came from the court’s three liberal justices and a justice appointed by former GOP Gov. Scott Walker.
Democrats also managed to deny the Green Party 2020 ballot access in Pennsylvania over a bogus technicality.
The Left’s War on Voters
Even as they crown themselves the party of “democracy,” Democrats do not believe in allowing voters to pick the candidates of their choice. Whether it’s keeping Trump or third-party candidates off the ballot, Democrats believe in weaponizing every aspect of the legal system to advantage their party in elections.
They do not care about so-called “voting rights,” democracy, or sustaining a free and transparent process that voters feel they can trust. All the Democrat Party cares about is power, and they will do anything it takes to keep it.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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