A Desperate Kennedy Campaign, and the Mystery of 110,000 Signatures

On Friday, a longtime friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate for president, delivered boxes carrying 110,000 signatures to election officials in Arizona, to secure ballot access in a critical battleground state.

A vast majority of those signatures, according to two people closely involved with the campaign’s operations, were not gathered by local volunteers, or even by paid canvassers working for the campaign. Instead, the people said, they came from a super PAC backing Mr. Kennedy that gathered signatures in Arizona months ago but set them aside after their efforts prompted legal challenges.

The issue of who collected the signatures is critical because coordination between super PACs and campaign committees is banned under federal law, though that rule — meant to limit the influence of megadonors on campaigns — has steadily eroded in recent years, as regulators have allowed exceptions and political groups have found workarounds. Among other prohibitions, super PACs are not allowed to give “in-kind” contributions to a campaign — basically, providing services free of charge.

On Monday, Stefanie Spear, a Kennedy campaign spokeswoman, said she could not confirm that account. “What the campaign knows is that Kennedy supporters Friday submitted 110,000 signatures in Phoenix, more than double the required 42,303 signatures,” she said.

Asked if the campaign knew where the signatures had come from, she said: “That’s all the information I have now.”

Top officials on the Kennedy campaign had discussed as recently as early August how they could use the signatures gathered by the super PAC, American Values 2024, to apply for ballot access in Arizona, according to the two people, who were granted anonymity to describe