A New York judge last week barred Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on the state’s November ballot, finding that the independent presidential candidate’s assertion that he had rented a bedroom in a friend’s home did not make him a New York resident as he had claimed.
On Monday, Mr. Kennedy’s opponents began trying to have him blocked a second time for good measure.
In a Mineola State Supreme Court courtroom, lawyers for two New York voters suing Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said that the campaign had employed a consulting firm whose subcontractors used deceptive tactics to gather signatures this spring to qualify him for the ballot. The plaintiffs, who are backed by the Democratic National Committee, want Justice Robert G. Bogle to order the State Board of Elections to keep Mr. Kennedy’s name off the ballot.
The trial, which is expected to last about a week, is likely to offer insight into the campaign’s expensive effort to secure ballot access in all 50 states. It could highlight the perils of hiring paid signature gatherers. And it could give Mr. Kennedy’s opponents a chance to erode his support in an election that could be swayed by mere thousands of votes.
On Monday, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the nominating petition submitted by Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, which included about 150,000 signatures, had been riddled with errors and fraud.
The plaintiffs claim that canvassers misled New Yorkers into signing the petition to put Mr. Kennedy on the ballot. The New York Times reported in May that paid signature gatherers had been folding over the tops of petitions to conceal the names of Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, and that some had claimed they were gathering signatures for Democrats and generic third-party candidates.
In opening statements Monday, Thomas J. Garry, a lawyer for Elaine Portuondo Smith and Andrena Y. Wyatt, the plaintiffs, said that the candidate had been aware of the deception. After Mr. Kennedy learned about it, Mr. Garry said, he promised that the campaign would discard the signatures, but it did not.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was fully informed and intimately involved,” Mr. Garry said.
Mr. Kennedy’s lawyers agreed to forgo their opening statements: Inclement weather canceled the lead attorney’s flight from Buffalo. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, said earlier this year that the conduct of the subcontractors had been “utterly at odds with all of our intensive training and material.”
Several witnesses who testified on Monday had been quoted in the New York Times article.
One was Joel Berg, who recounted how he had gone for a morning jog in Brooklyn this spring and as he arrived at Grand Army Plaza, a man with a clipboard had asked for his signature to help get President Biden and other candidates on the ballot in the Democratic primary.
This request struck Mr. Berg as odd, because the primary had already happened. Mr. Berg, who has himself collected signatures, said that while talking to the man, he noticed that the name at the top of the petition was covered. The signature gatherer, he said, mumbled that the petition was to help get Mr. Kennedy on New York’s ballot.
“He was engaged in fraud,” Mr. Berg said of the signature collector.
Another witness, Ira Pearlstein, a labor lawyer, recounted two similar experiences in Brooklyn. Mr. Pearlstein said he had confronted one signature gatherer, who explained that he had just gotten the job, was making $20 an hour and was simply trying to pay rent and feed his family.
“I have never seen any concealment like that, ever,” Mr. Pearlstein testified.
As testimony proceeded on Monday, law enforcement officers moved in and out of the chamber inspecting its entrances and exits. Mr. Kennedy is expected to testify later this week.
It is the second legal case that could block the political scion from the New York ballot. A state judge in Westchester ruled last week that Mr. Kennedy’s petition was invalid because it included a “sham” address he had used to maintain his New York residency.
Mr. Kennedy has appealed that ruling. The D.N.C. has said it is looking into whether it could be grounds for challenging his ballot status in other states. As of Monday, he is on the ballot in 19 states, according to an analysis by The Times, including the battleground states of Michigan and North Carolina.
Mr. Kennedy originally entered the Democratic primary but switched to an independent run. His campaign has been defined by his fringe views on vaccines and other topics, and the perception that he could function as a spoiler pulling votes from Democrats. (Recent polling suggests that his support, once in the double digits, has begun to sag, and also suggests that he now pulls voters more from former President Donald J. Trump.)
Last week, The Times and other outlets reported that Mr. Kennedy had unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign to offer an endorsement in exchange for a cabinet position. Last month, he had brief discussions with the Trump campaign about the possibility of a cabinet post in exchange for dropping out and endorsing him.
As Mr. Kennedy has struggled in the polls, his campaign has struggled to raise money. He has also had a string of bad press: He was recently forced to respond to sexual assault allegations and the revelation that he left a dead bear cub in Central Park in 2014.
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