A court on Friday ruled that independent candidate Cornel West cannot be on the presidential ballot in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that could decide the 2024 election.
In a 15-page opinion, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer sided with the Pennsylvania secretary of state’s office in rejecting West’s candidacy paperwork.
The secretary of state’s office said the paperwork lacked the affidavits for 14 of the 19 presidential electors required by the Aug. 1 filing deadline.
Jubelirer, a Republican, agreed that minor-party presidential electors should be considered candidates for office and must file affidavits, even if major-party presidential electors are not.
Matthew Haverstick, West’s lawyer who is referred to as the “counsel of choice for state Republicans in a number of recent policy fights,” argued in the now-failed legal challenge that he saw “no good reason for Mr. West to be kept off the ballot or Pennsylvanians otherwise prevented from voting for him.”
The Pennsylvania presidential election is expected to be very close, with former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris in a two-way race by less than 1 percentage point, 47.7% to 47.5%, according to RealClearPolitics. With third-party candidates included, Harris leads Trump by 2 percentage points in the state, 46.3% to 44.3%. In that poll, West received 0.2%.
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The ruling on West’s ballot access came on the same day independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Kennedy will remain on the ballot in states that are either reliably red or reliably blue but will remove his name from battleground states that will swing the election, including Pennsylvania and Arizona.
It is unclear whether Haverstick will appeal the court’s ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.