RICHMOND, Va. — Attorney General Mark Herring filed a legal brief opposing Kanye West's appeal to appear on Virginia's presidential ballot in November.
After a Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled that West was unqualified to be on the ballot, the rapper appealed the decision.
Judge Joi Taylor ruled on the rapper's ineligibility to have his name printed on the ballot after she found that 11 of his 13 electors were obtained through fraudulent means.
In the brief, Herring pointed to ballot printing deadlines as the reason why the rapper's appeal should be denied. The attorney general said ballot production has already started within all 133 localities in Virginia and that changing the ballot at this time would be detrimental to that process.
It's the same explanation Herring gave when West's lawyers filed a stay pending appeal motion to preserve where the legal battle currently stands over getting West's name on the ballot.
The brief also says: "Appellants demand that Virginia's election officials do the impossible: print, assemble, and mail hundreds of thousands of ballots in a single day. Should this Court grant appellants the relief they seek, election officials will be placed in a position where they will be unable to both comply with this Court's order and meet federal and state statutory deadlines. As a result, military voters would be denied rights afforded to them by federal law and scores of other people could be disenfranchised. Such relief would inject chaos and uncertainty into an already challenging election season."
