A Dane County judge today rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to be removed from Wisconsin’s presidential ballot.
A Kennedy attorney said immediately after today’s hearing he plans to appeal.
Judge Stephen Ehlke based his ruling on a state law that doesn’t allow candidates who file nomination papers to withdraw them. That statute only allows a candidate to be removed from the ballot due to death, and Ehlke found Kennedy was essentially asking the court to create an exception to that requirement for him.
“However, courts are required to apply the law as written, not as some party wishes it were written,” Ehlke ruled from the bench.
Ehlke originally planned to issue a decision tomorrow. But he moved up his decision by a day in acknowledgement of the looming deadlines to deliver ballots to voters. County clerks must have ballots printed and in the hands of local election officials by Wednesday. Municipal clerks must then send ballots by Thursday to voters who have an absentee request on file.
According to court documents in the case, some clerks have already started sending ballots to voters last week. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said in a deposition the city of Madison alone has 26,200 absentee ballot requests on file.
Kennedy has already asked the conservative 2nd District Court of Appeals to take the case and grant his request to be taken off the ballot. But the court put that case on hold until Ehlke issued his ruling.
