So much for Kanye West‘s presidential campaign in his home state of Illinois.
Though the rapper appeared to have gotten the required number of signatures there to appear on the ballot this November as an independent presidential candidate, the state election board in Illinois has determined that nearly 2,000 of his acquired 3,218 signatures submitted are not valid, and thus, do not count towards his total. YIKES!!!
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According to the Chicago Tribune in a Friday afternoon report, the state requires 2,500 independent, valid signatures from state residents for a person to appear on the presidential ballot at this point in the race. And while Kanye hired political operatives who got him 3,218 total signatures — well above the 2,500 mark — it turns out that a whopping 1,928 of the signatures submitted on West’s behalf were labeled invalid. That puts him well below the 2,500 necessary mark, and officially OFF the ballot in Illinois. Oops!
That in and of itself is big news, of course, but it gets worse for the 43-year-old rapper from there: West’s Ohio ballot petition signatures are also coming under scrutiny, too! According to a Newsweek report, early glances through his Ohio list of signatures has already found glaring discrepancies. For one, six of the 18 people that West listed to vote for him in the Electoral College this fall in that state were all listed as living at the exact same address in Cleveland. Hmmm…
And trouble has landed for the Jesus Walks rapper in Wisconsin, too! According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Wisconsin Democrats officially filed a complaint against the College Dropout rapper on Friday, citing (a) the fact that campaign operative Lane Ruhland allegedly delivered his signatures to election officials more than 30 minutes after the pre-determined deadline, and (b) many of the signatures appear to be fake and invalid, including ones listed as “Mickey Mouse,” “Bernie Sanders,” and several signatures bearing Kanye’s own name.
The Wisconsin State Journal is reporting further than even the signatures that West’s campaign appears to have gotten from real, legitimate people are in question, too. For one, a woman expressly explained in the Democrats’ official complaint how a stranger came up to her in a parking lot to ask if she’d registered to vote. When she said that she had, the stranger asked her to sign a document to “confirm she was registered.” As it turned out, the document was to get Kanye on the ballot in Wisconsin; the woman told Democrats had she known that up front, she never would have signed the document at all. Wow… talk about shady!!!
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For now, it’s just Illinois where West has been booted from the ballot, but judging by these reports, it sounds like further issues could potentially pop up in other states, too. As we reported on Saturday, West and his family had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic while trying to work out some major family issues away from the political campaign trail this week.
Judging by all the controversy and questions surrounding Kanye’s campaign anyways, we’re honestly not that torn up about this news. Just saying! This election is too important for Yeezy to go around f**king things up for this country!!!
[Image via WENN/Instar]
The post Kanye West Booted Off Illinois Ballot Due To Invalid Petition Signatures; Campaign At Risk In Wisconsin & Ohio, Too appeared first on Perez Hilton.