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Maine Joins Colorado in Finding Trump Ineligible for Primary Ballot
Donald J. Trump did not qualify for the ballot in Maine due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, in January.Credit…Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press
Published Dec. 28, 2023Updated Dec. 29, 2023, 12:19 a.m. ET
Maine’s top election official on Thursday barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary election ballot, the second state to block the former president’s bid for re-election based on claims that his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election rendered him ineligible.
Hours later, her counterpart in California announced that Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in the nation’s most populous state, where election officials have limited power to remove candidates.
According to Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, Mr. Trump did not qualify for the ballot due to his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, concurring with a few citizens who claimed that he had incited an insurrection and was therefore unable to seek the presidency again under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, wrote.
Last week, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled in a 4 to 3 decision that the former president should not be allowed to appear on that state’s Republican primary ballot.
The conflicting decisions underscore the ongoing tensions in the United States over democracy, ballot access and the rule of law. It also adds urgency to calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to insert itself into the politically explosive dispute over his eligibility.
Just weeks before the first votes in the 2024 election are set to be cast, lawyers on both sides are asking the nation’s top court to provide guidance on an obscure clause of a constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War, which is at the heart of the effort to block Mr. Trump from making a third White House run.
Courts in two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have ruled that election officials cannot prevent the Republican Party from including Mr. Trump on their primary ballots.
Michigan’s Supreme Court concluded on Wednesday that an appeals court had properly decided that political parties should be able to determine which candidates are eligible to run for president.
