the 2024 primary ballot

Maine’s top election official has removed former President Donald rump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot, in a shock decision based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.

”Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows paused her decision pending a potential appeal in state court, which rump’s team said they intend to file.The decision makes Maine the second state to disqualify the rump from office, after the Colorado Supreme Court handed down its own stunning ruling that removed him from the ballot earlier this month. 

The development is a significant victory for the rump’s critics, who say they’re trying to enforce a constitutional provision that was designed to protect the country from anti-democratic insurrectionists.Bellows, a Democrat, issued the decision Thursday after presiding over an administrative hearing earlier this month about the rump’s eligibility for office.

A bipartisan group of former state lawmakers filed the challenge against the rump.“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote. “Democracy is sacred … I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
 

Last edited by Spunky (12/28/2023 8:19 pm)