CHICAGO _ Rap artist, entrepreneur and aspiring presidential candidate Kanye West, a Chicago native, did not qualify to appear on Illinois' Nov. 3 ballot, the Illinois State Board of Elections decided Friday.
Board members, acting to finalize the fall ballot, voted 8-0 that West, whose independent campaign has been associated with a number of Republican operatives in other states, fell far short of filing the required number of signatures needed to appear on the ballot.
The move by the eight-member board, made up equally of Republicans and Democrats, was not surprising after two separate binder checks reviewing the authenticity of West's candidacy petitions found they fell far below the minimum needed.
Of the 3,128 signatures West filed with the elections board on July 20, one review found 1,928 of them were invalid, leaving him 1,300 signatures short of the 2,500 needed to become an independent candidate on the Illinois ballot.
The 2,500 signature standard is actually 10 times lower than usually required under a federal court order prompted by challenges to state law by third-party and independent candidates who cited personal restrictions due to the pandemic hindered their efforts to circulate petitions. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the modified filing rules on Thursday.
West's campaign can appeal the election board's ruling in court. Representatives for his campaign were not available for comment.
West's efforts to make ballots in a variety of states, where his campaign did not miss already expired deadlines, have met with mixed success.
He has qualified for the ballot so far in Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont. Earlier this week, he filed petitions for the ballot in Minnesota and Wyoming, where he lists his residence.
But on Thursday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to kick him off the battleground state's ballot for submitting candidacy petitions after a 5 p.m. deadline on Aug. 5. Also on Thursday, Montana officials tossed his name off the ballot for insufficient signatures. His ballot status is pending in Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
West, who was a supporter of President Donald Trump, had said he had a falling out with the Republican chief executive. But Democrats contended West's late bid for the White House was an attempt to take Black votes away from Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
In an interview with Forbes on Aug. 6, West acknowledged he was playing a spoiler role since his campaign would not appear on ballots in enough states to gain the 270 electoral votes needed to run a successful campaign for the presidency.
Trump has said that he likes "Kanye very much," but "I'm not involved" in his campaign. The New York Times reported that West met with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump in Colorado in early August. Kushner said they did not talk about the campaign and West told Forbes the two speak "almost daily."
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Danny Davis of Chicago said he doubted West would have much of an impact on syphoning Black votes from Biden in states where he appears on the ballot.
"I don't think there are many individuals who are viewing Kanye West's efforts to do whatever he's doing seriously," Davis said. "So I don't think it will have much impact at all. As a matter of fact, he's a good entertainer and he ought to stick to it."
In mid-July West held a bizarre kickoff rally in North Charleston, S.C., where he occasionally wept, pledged that mothers should receive $1 million per child and criticized Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist icon who helped free slaves from the South through the Underground Railroad, as merely moving slaves to "go work for other white people."
West's wife, Kim Kardashian West, has raised concerns about her husband's history of mental illness. In an Instagram post, she asked for understanding about the rapper suffering a bipolar episode in late July and said that "those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions."
West's presidential bid surfaced as he promoted the release of a new album last month named after his late mother, Donda.
