(New Jersey Monitor) An election lawyer alleges in a new lawsuit that New Jersey’s “sore loser law” prevents independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on the November ballot in the Garden State.
The law prohibits candidates from mounting independent campaigns the same year they’ve failed to win the nomination of a political party. Salmon says Kennedy did just that by seeking the White House as an independent after trying and failing to defeat President Joe Biden as a Democrat.
“If you want to run as an independent, that’s fine, run as an independent — don’t try and get the party’s nomination first, lose, and then decide, ‘You know what, screw these people, I want to go around the system,’” attorney Scott Salmon said in an interview.
The New Jersey Globe first reported Salmon’s complaint, which was filed in state Superior Court in Mercer County Tuesday.
Salmon was instrumental in keeping rapper Ye from appearing on the 2020 presidential ballot in New Jersey. Ye’s campaign withdrew from the race after Salmon challenged his petition signatures, saying some lacked required information and others looked identical.
Democrats in key states like North Carolina and Nevada, fearing Kennedy will siphon votes from Biden and hand the election to Republican Donald Trump, have made similar pushes to boot Kennedy from the ballot.
