The 2024 presidential campaign has already seen more than its share of unexpected twists and turns, and among the most surprising was the recent endorsement by the scion of a Democratic Party dynasty of the GOP Oval Office hopeful.

In the wake of his offer of support to Donald Trump and the suspension of his own campaign, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina Board of Elections to ensure that his name is removed from the ballot there ahead of November, as Fox News reports, something he feels is necessary to ensure that Kamala Harris goes down to defeat.

Genesis of dispute

It was last month in Arizona that Kennedy declared his plans to suspend his campaign, endorse Trump, and seek the removal of his name from the ballot in key battleground states.

Determining that he no longer saw any sort of viable path to the White House for himself, Kennedy decided that he did not want to play the “spoiler” in swing states and hand the election to Harris by siphoning votes from his newfound ally, Trump.

According to recent polling, one of the states in which such an outcome could occur is North Carolina, where the race between Trump and Harris remains tight.

As such, Kennedy requested that the state take his name off of its general election ballot, despite prior months of working to have it included.

Board says no

Kennedy's request to be taken off the ballot was, however, rejected by state elections board by a vote of 3-2, as PBS reported, with the panel's Democrat members narrowly triumphing over its Republican ones.

The rationale given for the outcome was that 2 million ballots containing Kennedy's name had already been printed in 67% of the state's counties.

As such, reprinting those ballots by the first absentee ballot submission deadline swiftly approaching would be costly, if not logistically almost impossible.

The board's executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, declared, “When we talk about printing a ballot, we are not talking about...pressing 'copy' on a Xerox machine. This is a much more complex and layered process.”

Republicans on the board countered by suggesting that the statutory absentee ballot deadline could simply be extended in order to honor Kennedy's request, but that argument failed to win the day.

Litigation commences

In light of the board's decision, Kennedy went ahead on Friday and filed suit in Wake County Superior Court, seeking to compel his removal from the state's general election ballot.

“With November election looming and ballot deadlines fast-approaching, Kennedy has no choice but to turn to this Court for immediate relief,” the ex-candidate's complaint stated.

The crux of Kennedy's request are his claims that the election board's decision runs afoul of not just state election law, but also his First Amendment right to free speech, but whether those arguments will prevail in the end, only time will tell.