ATLANTA (AP) — Challengers seeking to throw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off Georgia's November ballot told a judge on Monday that the independent presidential candidate must be disqualified because the New York address he used on Georgia ballot access petitions is a "sham.
" It shows how a decision by a New York court last week finding Kennedy doesn't live at the address in the New York City suburbs is being used to attack Kennedy's ballot access in other states. The judge ruled Kennedy shouldn't appear on New York ballots, but Kennedy is appealing. In New York on Monday, a trial opened in suburban Long Island in another lawsuit challenging Kennedy’s place on the state’s presidential ballot in November.
In Georgia, challengers argue that because Kennedy used the New York address, his petitions should be voided. “The court found, by clear and convincing evidence that petitioners had shown that his New York residence was a sham used for political purposes,” lawyer Adam Sparks said after a Monday hearing in Atlanta. “He doesn’t live there.
He claimed to on each and every sheet of his petition here in Georgia. That’s improper. It invalidates the petition, full stop.
” But a lawyer for Kennedy presented Michael Malihi, an administrative law judge, with Kennedy’s voting history as evidence of his New York residency. “Mr. Kennedy has been a lifelong resident of the state of New York,” lawyer Larry Otter said.
Otter said the challengers are improperly trying to impose.