One Saturday last month, several dozen members of the Alaskan Independence Party, a small, largely unknown political group whose primary goal is to put Alaskan secession from the United States to a vote, gathered in Fairbanks for their biennial convention.
Among the topics of conversation: whether to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president.
The party ultimately rejected Kennedy, who is running as an independent, after a few outspoken members said they did not want him atop their 2024 ticket, according to John Howe, the party’s chairman, who was involved in the discussions.
“There was serious consideration,” Howe, a machine shop owner, told ABC News.
The decision to pass on Kennedy was seen as a blow to the candidate — “They wanted us to put him on the ballot,” Howe said — as Kennedy works to overcome the biggest obstacle to his plans to run as a major outside candidate in November: getting on the ballot across the country.
Typically, independent candidates must undergo the painstaking, expensive process of gathering thousands of signatures from registered voters in each state in order to qualify for ballot access.
But a candidate can bypass those requirements if a political party that already has ballot access in a given state nominates them to lead their ticket there.
