Former President Donald Trump has been disqualified from Maine’s presidential primary ballot. This decision was made on Thursday by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows who ruled that Trump’s actions leading up to the U.S. Capitol protests on Jan. 6, 2021 was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.
Maine Kicks Trump Off 2024 Primary Ballot https://t.co/Iyuq0l1igW pic.twitter.com/gsGaevMiJX
— Daily Wire News (@DailyWireNews) December 29, 2023
Bellows, a Democrat who has expressed bias against Trump in the past, as evidenced by social media posts, also rejected the motion by Trump’s legal team to remove herself from the case.
Her ruling comes shortly after Trump was allowed on Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot after the state’s Supreme Court decided he was to be removed last week.
According to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office, Trump’s inclusion on the ballot comes after the matter was taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court and its permanence is contingent on the court’s ruling.
“With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” a news release from the office read.
A statement from Griswold herself states, “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed. I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.”
The Colorado GOP had filed the appeal, pointing out that Colorado “interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates.”
As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’s ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make,” the filing added.
