Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign announced Wednesday that it had filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the president Joe Biden and the campaigns of former President Donald Trump, as well as CNN, which claim they broke federal law in setting up the June 27 presidential debate.
Kennedy said CNN “requires that our campaign meet different criteria to participate in the debate than Presidents Biden and Trump,” he said in a press release.
CNN’s debate requirements state that “a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the electoral threshold of 270 votes to win the presidency before the eligibility deadline.” That deadline is June 20, a week before the debate will take place. The criteria are similar to what the Commission on Presidential Debates has long used for its fall debates, but the early timing of the CNN debate means the effects are different this time.
Kennedy is currently voting in seven states, including California and battleground Michigan, but he has not yet gained the right to vote in states with a total of 270 electoral votes. He has said in several recent interviews that his campaign will reach that threshold before the June 20 deadline, although various state procedures and deadlines could make that difficult.
“The mere request for access to ballots does not guarantee that he will appear on the ballot in any state,” CNN said in a statement to NBC News. “Furthermore, RFK Jr. currently not meeting our election criteria, which, like the other objective criteria, were established before the invitations to the debate were issued.”
Kennedy has reached the threshold set by the polling criteria in three surveys so far, and one more is needed to meet the poll requirement of 15% support in four different CNN-endorsed surveys.
Meanwhile, Kennedy argues that Biden and Trump will also fail to meet ballot access requirements because their party conventions formalizing their nominations won’t take place until later this summer.
“The law in virtually every state provides that the candidate of a state-recognized political party is granted access to the ballot box without filing a petition. As their parties’ presumptive nominees, both Biden and Trump will meet this demand,” CNN said in its statement.
Kennedy asks the FEC to prevent Biden, Trump and CNN from holding the June 27 debate. However, the FEC may take a long time to respond to these complaints – years instead of the month Kennedy is asking for. For example, a Democratic National Committee complaint against Kennedy’s campaign and super PAC in February has yet to elicit a response from the FEC.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
