Republicans would rather rule The mailing of over 100,000 North Carolina absentee ballots in-state and to armed service members and others residing overseas will be delayed for weeks. (Dare we again use unprecedented?) North Carolina’s state Supreme Court on Monday ruled for RFK Jr. on his demand that his name/party that he fought to include on state ballots now be removed. One hundred county Boards of Elections have already printed roughly 3 million in-person and absentee ballots with Kennedy’s name on them. His delay in withdrawing from the presidential contest to endorse Donald Trump means strapped county boards must pay reprinting costs. As we noted on Saturday, “2,348 ballot styles will have to be reformatted, reproofed, reprinted, mailings re-prepared by staff, and voting machines recoded in 100 counties.” The cost of Kennedy’s vanity project to North Carolina taxpayers and delay to voters will be considerable. State law requires absentee ballots to be mailed 60 days ahead of the general election. That was Friday, September 6. The court split 4-3 to circumvent that law , with one Republican justice joining two Democrats in dissent (WRAL): Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, who is also on the ballot this year as she seeks to retain her seat against state Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, wrote in dissent Monday that Kennedy’s request wasn’t worth missing what could end up being close to a month of the state’s mail-in voting period. She referenced the fact that until recently, Kennedy had been fighting to get onto…