After battling most of this year to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot in swing states, Democrats are now making sure his name stays on them in Wisconsin, Michigan and possibly North Carolina even though he suspended his campaign and aligned himself with former President Donald Trump.

Critics say the move appears to be political and an attempt to siphon swing state votes away from Mr. Trump. 

Democrats didn’t balk when Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly replaced President Biden on the ballot in August, they point out, and Democrats spent months trying to prevent third-party candidates and Mr. Kennedy from securing a place on state ballots as polls suggested it would hurt Mr. Biden. 

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Those efforts ended when Mr. Biden dropped out and Mr. Kennedy’s remaining supporters appeared more likely to take away votes from Mr. Trump. 

“Democrats spent millions on lawsuits to keep us off the ballots,” Mr. Kennedy’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, told Fox News. “Now that we’ve suspended our campaign, they’re scrambling to keep us on the ballot.” 

Mr. Kennedy put his campaign on hold on Aug. 23 and endorsed Mr. Trump. He left his name on many blue-state ballots but sought to remove it from ballots in swing states, where he’s most likely to influence the outcome. 

In Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democratic officials say they are following their laws by refusing Mr. Kennedy’s effort to get off the ballot, but Republicans disagree. 

Don M. Millis, a GOP-appointed member of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, voted along with two other GOP members last week to remove Mr. Kennedy from Wisconsin’s presidential ballot, at Mr. Kennedy’s request. 

Mr. Millis said there was time to take his name off the ballot because it had not been printed yet. Wisconsin ballots must be delivered to municipal clerks by September 18, leaving plenty of time to remove Mr. Kennedy from the choices. 

But the three Democrats on the panel defeated the GOP motion citing Wisconsin law requiring a candidate to remain on the ballot once they file a sufficient number of valid signatures, unless the candidate dies.

Mr. Millis disagreed. 

“That is a perverse reading of the law,” he told The Washington Times. “Certainly, once the Elections Commission approves the candidates for the ballot and clerks begin printing, then it is too late to take someone off the ballot. If a candidate wants to withdraw before the ballot is set, a common sense reading of the law mandates he or she not be placed on the ballot.”

Mr. Kennedy could now play spoiler to Mr. Trump in the Badger State, even though he’s been promised a position on the former president’s transition team if Mr. Trump wins. 

Wisconsin is likely to produce one of the closest outcomes in the presidential race. In the past two presidential elections, the winner prevailed by less than 1% of the vote. Mr. Kennedy is polling at about 4% in Wisconsin and polling trends suggest his supporters would pick Mr. Trump over Ms. Harris if his name was not on the ballot.

Ronald Heuer, president of Wisconsin Voter Alliance, an election integrity watchdog organization, said the commission followed the law, which he said requires Mr. Kennedy’s name to stay on the ballot. 

The decision nonetheless appears political, he said. 

“If the tables were turned on the Kennedy issue to where it helped the Democrats, they would have found a way to bend the law to suit the Democrats’ need,” he said.   

Mr. Heuer described the state election commission as extremely partisan. 

At the same meeting, Republicans blocked Democrats on the Wisconsin Election Commission from removing Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West from the ballot. The two candidates are considered more likely to draw away votes for Ms. Harris.

Critics also said politics played a role in keeping Mr. Kennedy on the ballots in Michigan and North Carolina, two additional swing states that will play an outsized role in determining the winner of the presidential race.

On Tuesday, a Michigan judge ruled Mr. Kennedy’s name must remain on the ballot after he challenged a decision by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, to leave it on despite his request to have it removed.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Benson said Mr. Kennedy’s argument that he should have his name stripped off the ballot defies state law.

Mr. Kennedy made it onto the state ballot after he was nominated by the Natural Law Party earlier this year.

“We appreciate Mr. Kennedy’s dilemma,” spokeswoman Angela Benander said. “However, Michigan election law is clear. [it] explicitly states that once a political party formally nominates and certifies a candidate, as the Natural Law Party did here, and that candidate accepts the nomination, as Kennedy did in April 2024, that candidate ‘shall not be permitted to withdraw.’ Based on this language, Mr. Kennedy’s request to withdraw from the November ballot was rejected.”

Michigan is expected to produce a very close outcome. Mr. Biden won the state by a margin of less than 3% in 2020. 

Mr. Kennedy last week sued North Carolina’s Democrat-led election board after it voted along party lines to reject his request to strip his name off the ballot, where he’s listed as a third-party candidate. 

Mr. Trump won North Carolina in 2020 by a 1.4% margin.

Democratic officials on the board said it would have been too difficult to reprint more than 1.7 million ballots and mail them on time to absentee voters. 

Trump supporters say the move to keep Mr. Kennedy on the three swing-state ballots appears particularly partisan because the Democrats switched their presidential nominee just a few weeks ago without any ballot hassles. 

“If they can’t remove RFK Jr.’s name from the ballot, then they shouldn’t be able to remove Joe Biden’s name,” the chairman of Students for Trump, posted on X.

State officials said the Democrats nominated Ms. Harris to the top of the ticket in time to meet ballot deadlines. She officially won the nomination in a virtual vote that was certified by the Democratic National Committee on Aug. 6. 

In Michigan, the names on the ballot are chosen by state party conventions no later than 60 days before the election.

“Kamala Harris was nominated by the Michigan Democratic Party at its state convention on Saturday, August 24, 2024,” Ms. Benson said. “Joe Biden was not officially nominated in 2024 by either the Michigan Democratic Party or the Democratic National Committee. Vice President Harris is the only nominee put forth by the party this year so there hasn’t been a ’switch’ under the law.”