Kanye West barred from contesting in three states; more updates about presidential bid

Kanye West has a lot on his plate at the moment. He is struggling with a serious episode of bipolar disorder which keeps leading to public outbursts. He has also waged a war against record contracts over his demand that all artists should own their copyrights. Meanwhile, he has also been trying to create new music.

Apart from all this, Kanye West is also running for the United States president as an independent candidate. The musician has hired an expensive team to work on his presidential bid ahead of the upcoming elections in November, but yet some things are not working in his favour.

The "Jesus Is King" rapper had hired "Let the Voters Decide," a third-party petitioning group, to gather the required signatures in states in order to be placed on the presidential ballot in November. A TMZ report on Monday stated that he has paid them between $3.5m (£2.7m) and $4.5m (£3.5m) till now to work for him across 15 states, as revealed by a source in the organisation.

The 43-year-old has received mixed results despite his vast expenses. According to the report, he paid $1 million to get 93,000 signatures in Arizona, but a judge is said to have barred him from being on the ballot. A lawsuit was also filed in the state on Monday to keep him off the ballot as an independent candidate on the grounds that he and 10 of his 11 electors are Republicans, reports CNN.

The lawsuit is in line with the allegations that Republicans are promoting Kanye's candidacy in an effort to siphon Black votes from Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in swing states.

It is claimed that the same thing has happened with the rapper in Ohio and Virginia, where he paid $325,000 and $300,000, respectively for the signatures but couldn't make it to the ballot. Two Virginia residents are suing him to keep his name off the state's ballot in November, alleging that they were duped into signing on as electors for him.

However, he has managed to register himself onto the ballot for 12 states including Kentucky, where he allegedly spent $400,000 to get the required signatures, and in Iowa, after reportedly paying $80,000.

As per the financial filings with the Federal Election Commission, obtained by Politico, the father-of-four has personally loaned his campaign nearly $6.8million between July 15 and Aug. 30.