A New York court questioned RFK Jr. about the deceptive tactics his campaign used to gather signatures from voters on the petition for his name to appear on the New York presidential ballot in November this year.
The court asked Kennedy how he handled the revelations that his subcontractors concealed his name from the petition that sought to make him eligible for the presidential elections.
Kennedy accepted the wrongdoing as he stated that he had the ultimate responsibility to oversee things happening in his campaign.
The lawsuit against Kennedy was initiated by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which tried to keep Kennedy away from the NY ballot amid the fears that he might hurt Kamala Harris’s chances in the deep blue state.
Under the New York law, potential presidential candidates have to gather at least 45,000 signatures from voters in order to appear on the state ballot. Although Kennedy got a lot more than that, majorly through pouring in more than $1 million in effort to do so and paying people up to $90 per hour for the job, his campaign came under scrutiny for using deceptive practices in the process.
Reports indicated that the subcontractors used to fold the top portion of the petition while luring voters into signing it without telling them the actual purpose of the petition.
Some voters raised alarms about the deceptive practice, leading to a New York Times report that published the stories of multiple voters, including a judge, who were approached for the signatures on the folded petitions.
This report created an internal panic within the Kennedy campaign as his campaign manager, Amaryllis Kennedy, sent an email to other staffers that the controversial petitions should not be used while submitting the signatures to the state. Amaryllis, who is also Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, wrote that the signatures “rife with hidden errors” could disqualify Kennedy.
The Kennedy campaign also sued the subcontractor who was involved in concealing names, noting that they spent money on getting signatures that were absolutely useless.
During his court appearance, Kennedy also admitted that his campaign wasted 800 pages with nearly 8,000 signatures with any visible signs of being folded in the “fraud box.” However, the plaintiffs presented at least one petition that had a visible folding crease at the top, which was still submitted to the NY state as a valid petition.
The DNC also accused Kennedy’s campaign of adopting many other fraudulent signature practices, such as lying to people about the reason for getting signatures.
RFK Jr. has now ended his independent presidential bid to support the former president Donald Trump for the White House.
