Third-party candidates would pull votes from Biden and Trump, but some polls indicate that Biden’s campaign would suffer more from the presence of third-party candidates in North Carolina. Candidates are seeking any advantage they can get in the closely contested Tar Heel State, where Trump beat Biden by less than 75,000 votes in 2020.

Further, Cox said, the board intends to clarify a misunderstanding. The letter states that the board’s decision “ensures that some otherwise qualified candidates will not garner votes in the November election” — but that’s not necessarily true, Cox said. The state elections board chose to continue its review of the ballot petitions — not to deny them outright.

The board “elected to review these petitions further to decide at a later date this month whether the prospective new parties met the requirements of state law to be officially recognized,” Cox told WRAL. “No final decision has been reached on the Constitution Party, the Justice for All Party, or the We the People Party.”

Board members raised different issues with each petition.

Democrats on the state elections board expressed concern that the We the People Party sought certification only to get Kennedy on the ballot — circumventing the state’s laws for individual candidates. In North Carolina, state law makes it harder for individual candidates to get ballot access than for new political parties.

Board members asked We The People representatives about a script they provided to volunteers, which said the purpose of the petition was to create a new political party and get Kennedy’s name on the North Carolina ballot.

The party’s petition, board members noted, should be signed by people who want to advocate for a common set of beliefs.

The Constitution Party’s petition, meanwhile, is hung up on a technical issue.

State law requires party petitions to include a legitimate address. The group’s petition listed the address of a former residence for Al Pisano, chair of the state party.

Pisano told board members that he wasn’t sure if he needed to change the address. The party was on North Carolina’s ballot in 2020. Its presidential nominee, Don Blankenship, received 7,549 votes of the 5.5 million cast.

Pisano said that he had previously reached out to elections board staff about the address issue and didn’t receive an answer. Board members delayed their decision on the Constitution Party to review records exchanged by Pisano and board staff.

Democratic board member Siobhan Millen said that, before the address issue came up, she had expected the party’s petition to be “probably a slam dunk.”