A federal court in Manhattan has ruled that independent candidate Robert F Kennedy is ineligible to appear on the ballot in New York before the November presidential election over allegations of using a “sham” address to file documents in the state.

According to the New York Times, a group of New York residents backed by Clear Choice, a Democrat-aligned political action committee, had filed a lawsuit against Mr Kennedy, challenging his residency in the state where he had lived most of his adult life. 

The group argued that the 70-year-old environmental lawyer’s campaign had used a false address on the tens of thousands of nominating petitions it circulated and submitted to place him on the ballot, which intentionally misled election officials and betrayed voters’ trust.

In a ruling by Justice Christina L. Ryba, a State Supreme Court judge, agreed with the group and ruled that Mr Kennedy’s petition to appear on New York’s ballot was invalid. The judgement endangered his efforts to appear on the ballot in other states.

The ruling also opened up Mr Kennedy to legal challenges in other states where he is already on the ballot because he used the same address on nominations and campaign documents. 

As of Friday, he was on the ballot in 19 states, the Times reported.

Mr Kennedy now has three days to appeal the judgment. On that Monday, Mr Kennedy’s campaign said it would file a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan. 

“The 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution governs the residency of presidential and vice-presidential candidates, not state law,” said the campaign’s senior counsel, Paul Rossi. “If state court judges are going to ignore the Constitution, the federal courts must step in to protect voters’ rights.”

Reacting to the ruling, Mr Kennedy said, “The Democrats are showing contempt for democracy. They aren’t confident they can win at the ballot box, so they are trying to stop voters from having a choice. We will appeal, and we will win.”