Kanye West files for presidential ballot in Arkansas with life coach VP but misses Kansas deadline amid ‘forgery’ claims
KANYE West filed for the presidential ballot in Arkansas on Monday, with a “biblical life coach” as his VP, amid claims the rapper’s New Jersey petition contained forgery.
West submitted the 1,000 required signatures for Arkansas just minutes before the 12pm deadline, according to reports, but missed the Kansas deadline, which required 5,000 signatures.
West has officially missed the deadlines in New York and Maryland but has filed to run in both Vermont and West Virginia, TMZ reported.
West named Tidball, who is based in Wyoming, as his vice president in an Independence Day tweet.
Although she is listed on the Arkansas and West Virginia ballots, she did not appear on Vermont’s, however Tidball is yet to confirm it herself.
Tidball describes herself as a “biblical life coach”, and according to Forbes, once said she doesn’t “watch news”.
On July 29, an election lawyer claimed West’s 1,327 signatures he submitted in New Jersey, which requires 800 signatures for candidates to get on the presidential ballot, contained more than 600 defective signatures.
Scott Salmon, a Democrat, said he reviewed the signatures — and has claimed hundreds of them appear defective in some way, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Salmon filed a complaint on Wednesday with the state’s Divison of Elections, arguing West’s signatures are not complete and in some cases, have very similar handwriting.
He wrote in the complaint that West’s signatures should have been rejected by election officials.
Salmon said many of the signatures appear almost identical, and claimed the lower-case ‘i’ letters are dotted with a small circle.
Salmon told Politico: “The odds that 30 people in a row from all over the state would have a little circle about the i’s is a little hard to believe.”
West is also attempting to get onto ballot in Wisconsin.
According to Intelligencer, West hired the petitioning firm Let the Voters Decide to get 2,000 valid signatures by Tuesday at 5 p.m. to be listed on the ballot.
In 2016, Wisconsin proved to be a huge swing state helped the decision by less than 23,000 votes.
In order to help get West on the ballot, the petitioning firm deployed 45 people in the state, according to Intelligencer.
West is also reportedly trying to get on the ballots for Ohio and West Virginia.
Vermont and Colorado do not require a candidate to petition to get on the ballot.
If West is successful in his efforts in Wisconsin and Ohio, they will be the first swing states he will appear on the ballot.
For Ohio, West needs to gather 5,000 valid signatures by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
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To appear on the ballot in West Virginia, West would have had to submit over 7,000 signatures.
In Oklahoma, West paid a $35,000 filing fee to appear on the ballot.
In Illinois his campaign reportedly also faces questions about whether the paperwork submitted was insufficient and he did not submit a name of a running mate or slate of electors.