SALT LAKE CITY — On the heels of making a campaign stop in Salt Lake City, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent candidate, is suing Utah officials.
The lawsuit names Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson and Ryan Cowley, the Director of Elections of the State of Utah, as defendants in the lawsuit.
Court documents state an "unconstitutional early filing deadline" prevents ballot access for independent presidential candidates.
In Utah, independent candidates must collect 1,000 valid signatures of qualified electors, with the certificate of nomination, between January 2 and 8.
The lawsuit claims that by enforcing the rule, "immediate relief is necessary in order to prevent severe economic harm to Plaintiff RFK."
"The county clerk for Salt Lake County has advised that she will need two weeks to validate all signatures, such that petitioning must stop no later than December 14th," documents read. "Accordingly, in order to collect the 1,500 to 1,600 raw signatures – in the middle of December’s cold weather, sufficient to guarantee that at least 1,000 of the signatures will be validated in time to meet the January 8, 2023 deadline, Plaintiff RFK will be forced at the end of next week, at the latest, to make the decision to hire professional petition circulators at a cost of between $7 and $10 per valid signature by late next week."
Kennedy and his campaign are seeking an emergency temporary restraining order on the rule.
"It directly impairs voters from casting meaningful votes in the general election," said Paul Rossi, a member of the legal counsel for Kennedy's campaign. "We’re challenging it so the voters of Utah, like every other state in the nation, they have a right to cast ballots for the candidate they might want to support."
Kennedy's campaign claims that there’s precedent — citing a 1980 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
"John Anderson was an independent candidate against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, and he announced his candidacy after March that year," Rossi said. "And because Ohio’s March 15th deadline was so early, he was prevented to make the ballot."
The ruling in 1980 stated that voters and candidates need time to assess who the major party candidates may be, in order to know whether they’d choose a third party candidate.
"Back in 1984, Utah had an April 15th deadline and the secretary, the lieutenant governor’s office at that time, recognized that that deadline was so early and unconstitutional that they told independent candidates: ‘don’t worry about it, we’re not enforcing it,'" Rossi said.
Even though Henderson and Cowley are named in the lawsuit, Rossi said he believes it’s the state legislature at fault.
"The state legislature has shown absolute contempt for the constitution, absolute contempt for the voters of Utah to be able to cast a ballot for a candidate they’d like to support," he said.
Henderson's office told FOX 13 News that they are reviewing the suit and have no comment at this time.
