Authorities are being asked to investigate whether Cabinet nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. flouted the law last month by voting in New York after the court determined he did not actually live there.
Kennedy, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, had lost a months-long legal battle over the Westchester County address he claimed in his New York petition to run for president. Judges concluded he had no real ties to the Katonah home he listed and threw out his petition for providing a false address.
But it turns out that Kennedy still used the same address for absentee voting in the Nov. 5 election.
That led to a complaint last week from Suzanne Berger, the Democratic chairwoman of Westchester, who asked state and county authorities to determine whether Kennedy — who switched from Democrat to independent to Trump supporter during the course of his presidential run — had committed a crime by using an illegal address. to vote.
Kennedy violated the law by voting from an address that was “deemed unusable for establishing residency,” Berger argued in her Dec. 13 letter to the offices of Attorney General Letitia James and Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah .
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, arrives in Washington, DC for meetings at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2024.
Westchester Democratic Chairman: RFK Jr. ‘thumbs his nose’ at the rules
Berger said in an interview Tuesday that she filed her complaint because “voter integrity is an important issue” for her and her fellow party members, and one that would help raise Kennedy’s profile. She said she also wanted to draw attention to the actions of a potential Cabinet secretary. Whether he is charged with illegal voting depends on which offices she contacted, she added.
“People need to know that this is someone who is not following the rules,” Berger said. “He turns his nose up at them.”
State records show the Westchester County Board of Elections sent Kennedy a ballot on Oct. 1 and received his completed ballot on Nov. 2, three days before the election.
Kennedy, who was nominated by Trump last month and has started seeking support from Republican senators to win confirmation, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
The Westchester District Attorney’s Office said it had received Berger’s complaint and was investigating it.
Court appeal: RFK Jr. is still fighting an election in New York after ending the White House bid and endorsing Trump
Kennedy lives in LA, but tried to claim Katonah’s address
Kennedy, who lived in Westchester County for three decades while working as a crusader environmental lawyer, moved to California in 2014 after marrying actress Cheryl Hines and owns a 5,900-square-foot home they bought for $6.6 million in tony Brentwood district of Los Angeles. .
Yet his candidate petition claimed he lived in northern Westchester, with an address on Croton Lake Road in the hamlet of Katonah. In the ensuing legal battle, Kennedy said he rented a bedroom in that house from a couple he had known for a long time, although he admitted in court that he had only spent one night there.
A state judge in Albany decisively rejected his residency claims in August as “a sham.” But Kennedy continued to fight unsuccessfully in both state and federal courts to get his name on the ballot in New York, even after dropping his campaign and endorsing Trump. That search finally ended in late September when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed this house on Croton Lake Road in Katonah as his address on his presidential petitions to get on the ballot in New York and other states. But it’s an intermittent stopgap for him at best, and his dubious residency claims are being used by opponents to invalidate his New York petition. Here the house is pictured on July 12, 2024.
The Westchester Board of Elections said Tuesday that it had mailed Kennedy’s absentee ballot to him at the Katonah address he provided when he registered.
Groups alarmed that Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, could take charge of the nation’s health agencies are trying to torpedo his nomination. On Tuesday, a mobile billboard circled the Capitol in Washington, D.C., labeling Kennedy as a “threat to your family’s health,” courtesy of an advocacy group called Protect Our Care. That group launched a “Stop RFK War Room” this week to declare Kennedy unfit for the Cabinet post, a campaign that included billboards in the states of key senators.
Residence dispute: Does RFK Jr. live really in Westchester? The ruling will decide whether he runs for president in New York
That resistance includes disclosing Kennedy’s voting record in New York, despite the dispute over whereabouts. A public relations firm working for Protect Our Care and other groups distributed to the media a copy of Berger’s letter and a separate report of Kennedy’s lawsuit, intending to show that Kennedy “appears to have committed voter fraud.”
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: RFK Jr. was voted on by absentee ballot after the court denied the residency claim
