Despite announcement, RFK Jr. is not yet on the presidential ballot in Florida

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Friday that he’ll be on the presidential ballot in Florida in November as the nominee of the Reform Party, but the party itself is not recognized by the state’s Division of Elections.

An alternative political party created by Ross Perot in the mid-1990s to give voters another choice in presidential elections, Reform nominated Kennedy Jr. on Thursday night to be their presidential candidate this fall, saying in a press release that the nomination would allow him to take the Reform Party’s Florida ballot line.

However, the Florida Division of Elections cancelled the Reform Party’s filings as a minor political party last August, records show. That came months after the office mailed a “Notice of Intent to Cancel” to the party for failing to comply with a 2022 annual public audit.

A spokesman for the Reform Party told the Phoenix this afternoon that they filed this past Monday to reinstate the party in Florida. “As soon as our paperwork is processed, we will be good to go,” the spokesperson said.

Mark Ard, the director of external affairs for the Florida Department of State, told the Phoenix that the Reform Party has “resubmitted a request to again become a recognized party in Florida and their application is currently under review. Any communication regarding the pending application will be directly with the party.”

The Kennedy Jr. campaign is furiously working to get ballot access in all 50 states. Officially, his campaign says he is on the ballot in seven states: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. In a press release, the campaign says that they have collected enough signatures to qualify in an additional eight states: Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio.

If the Reform Party does win recognition by the state’s Division of Elections, it will allow Kennedy’s campaign to save the financial resources required to secure ballot access via petition. The campaign would need to collect more than 145,000 valid signatures to qualify for the Florida November ballot as an independent candidate, according to the state’s Federal Qualifying Handbook.