This was supposed to be the week the first ballots were cast in a swing state in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, with the start of voting by mail.

That's now been plunged into disarray.

The cause is a feud involving Robert Kennedy Jr. The setting? North Carolina, where a court battle stalled plans to start mailing ballots to three million residents by the legal deadline last Friday.

The state's conservative-majority Supreme Court has sided with the third-party candidate, who now backs Donald Trump and wanted his name removed from ballots in specific swing states.

The court ruled Monday that millions of ballots carrying Kennedy's name must indeed be reprinted, blaming state election officials for not acting sooner to heed his wishes.  

It's an inauspicious start to the voting season and reminiscent of the myriad court battles that marked the chaotic pandemic-era election four years ago.

All of this is unfolding in a state that's become a potentially game-changing electoral battleground. Polls show a statistical tie between Trump and Kamala Harris, with two new surveys this week even showing her three points ahead.

"It just drives me nuts when there's so many of us who readily work our asses off to get ready for, and then implement, an election — Republicans and Democrats alike," said Democratic volunteer Robert Kline, a semi-retired doctor speaking Monday between phone-banking and door-knocking shifts in Asheville, N.C.

"Then, to have this kind of partisan nonsense inserted, it's just heartbreaking."

WATCH | RFK Jr. suspends campaign, endorses Donald Trump:

RFK Jr. suspends campaign, pledges support for Trump

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suspending his independent U.S. presidential campaign and supporting Donald Trump. While he is not dropping out completely, Kennedy says he plans to remove his name from the ballot in states where it will not affect the race.

Gauging the election impact

It's hard to assess the electoral impact, if any. Democratic voters have, in the past, been far more likely to use mail ballots, especially in the 2020 pandemic year.

But this year, the party here has actually been dissuading its voters from using mail ballots unless absolutely necessary, because of new rules adopted by the state legislature that they fear could result in ballots being rejected.

The Republican-controlled legislature passed a law that requires two witnesses or a notary's signature; a photocopied ID placed inside a clear sleeve; a voter's signature; and three stamps totalling $1.77 US. 

"If it's not done right, it'll be invalidated," Kline said.

The upshot is that counties in the state will have to reprint ballots, without Kennedy's name, at their own expense. That's 100 counties, using 2,348 different ballot lists, totalling an estimated three million copies.

This potentially delays mail voting here by several weeks, forcing the state to seek federal permission to blow past a legal deadline to send ballots to Americans overseas by Sept. 21.

This is the start of the mail-voting season, in a country where nearly 40 states now have widespread voting by mail, and about nine vote exclusively by mail.

Ballots were supposed to start going out Sept. 6 in North Carolina, along with Delaware. Over the next two weeks, it happens in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and by the first week of October, essentially all swing states will have mailed out ballots to residents living at home and abroad.

Counterpoint: Democrats have themselves to blame

A Republican candidate running for state Senate in North Carolina criticized Democrats — for first suing to keep Kennedy off the ballot in multiple states, and now suing to keep him on.

"Anything they don't like, they sue over it. It is their [modus operandi]. Don't like it? Sue," said Kristie Sluder, a social worker running in western North Carolina. "They are a lawfare nation, the progressive left — it's the country they live in."

She went on to describe Kennedy as a truly amazing human being.

The shifting attitude toward Kennedy's presence has coincided with his shifting effect on the election. Initially, it appeared, he might siphon votes from both parties. 

Kennedy's support from the left cratered, however, after Harris entered the race, and he was mainly damaging Republicans. He has now paused his campaign and wants his name removed from ballots in swing states where he risks hurting Trump.

In a 4-3 ruling Monday, North Carolina's high court said if anyone's to blame for the current confusion, it's the state Democratic-controlled elections board, which should have acted sooner. 

"Any harm … is of their own making," said the decision.

"We acknowledge that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require considerable time and effort by our election officials and significant expense to the State. But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution expects us to incur to protect voters' fundamental right to vote their conscience and have that vote count."

The state elections body could have acted when Kennedy's campaign informed it on Aug. 23 that it wanted off the ballot, said the ruling; instead, it kept encouraging counties to proceed with printing the existing ballot.

The judges brushed aside a key contention of a lower court: that Kennedy wouldn't be harmed by having his name on the ballot, but state agencies would suffer damages, and said the existing ballot would indeed do damage to a large group of people — North Carolina voters.

In a set of dissenting opinions, judges in the minority wrote that Kennedy hadn't given elections agencies much time: he'd only filed his motion requesting a court injunction on Sept. 3, three days before the ballots were to go out.

They said Kennedy did not merit this injunction because he had not suffered irreparable harm. One of the dissenting opinions also accused Kennedy of irresponsible gamesmanship: of wanting to officially remain a candidate, but not in swing states, and in the process stall ballot deliveries and shorten the voting season.

"Egregious and unjustified," was how the dissenting opinion described the ruling. 

"With a disturbing disregard for the impact on millions of North Carolina voters, [Kennedy] seeks to have his cake and eat it, too.… Here, the whims of one man have been elevated above the constitutional interests of [voters]."

The dissenting judges called it a dark day for the state's judiciary: "North Carolina voters deserve better."

Meanwhile, in Michigan on Monday, the state's high court issued an opposite ruling: Kennedy will remain on the ballot there.