Start of early voting in North Carolina could be delayed after ruling in RFK Jr. ballot challenge

(CNN) — The first ballots in the nation are scheduled to start going out Friday in North Carolina, but that could be delayed after a judge ordered a temporary pause on ballot distribution.

The ruling came in response to a request from former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to remove his name from the ballot.

North Carolina’s Democratic-controlled State Board of Elections voted along party lines last week to reject Kennedy’s request, saying that it wouldn’t be practical to reprint ballots and delay the start of voting.

Kennedy, who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed former President Donald Trump, then challenged that decision in court.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt denied the former candidate’s request Thursday but also ordered a pause to allow Kennedy to appeal.

In her written order, the judge ordered the state not to proceed with mailing absentee ballots before noon Friday.

Holt found that rejecting Kennedy’s request would lead to “minimal” harm to him but that removing his name would be a significant burden for elections officials.

“The court can find no practical, personal or pecuniary harm to the plaintiff should his name remain on the ballot,” Holt said from the bench “The defendant, however, would have to reprint the ballots at considerable cost and effort and will likely find themselves in violation of the state mandated deadline for distributing absentee ballots.”

After the hearing, Paul Cox, the general counsel for the state elections board, instructed counties to not send ballots out Friday morning.

However, Cox said ballots would need to be go out Friday afternoon, unless an appeals court ordered a further delay.

As CNN previously reported, since endorsing Trump, Kennedy has sought to withdraw his name from the ballot in competitive states in order to boost the former president’s chances of winning there. But he has encountered obstacles to those attempts beyond North Carolina.

On Tuesday, a Michigan judge ruled that he must remain on the ballot in the battleground state after Kennedy filed a lawsuit asking the court to remove him. The elections commission in Wisconsin – another Midwestern battleground also ruled last week that Kennedy will appear on the ballot despite a similar request to withdraw.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.

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