Maine elections official disqualifies Trump from presidential primary ballot

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Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, has disqualified Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary election ballot for the Republican nomination in 2024. Bellows cited Trump's role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, concluding that he incited an insurrection by spreading false claims about voter fraud and urging his supporters to march on the Capitol. The decision is suspended until the state supreme court rules on the matter and can be appealed to a state court. This follows a similar disqualification in Colorado, making Trump the first candidate in U.S. history deemed ineligible for the presidency due to engaging in insurrection.

A group of former Maine lawmakers had argued that Trump should be disqualified based on a provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars people from holding office if they engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" after previously swearing an oath to the United States. The ruling applies only to the March primary election, but it could impact Trump's status for the November general election, adding to the pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve questions about his eligibility nationwide under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, has been indicted in both a federal case and in Georgia for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, but he has not been charged with insurrection related to the January 6 attack. He leads opinion polls by a large margin in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024.

Colorado's top court disqualified Trump from the state primary ballot on December 19, marking the first time in U.S. history that a candidate has been deemed ineligible for the presidency due to engaging in insurrection. Trump has vowed to appeal the Colorado ruling to the Supreme Court and criticized ballot challenges as "undemocratic." The Colorado Republican Party filed its own Supreme Court appeal on Wednesday.

Similar attempts to disqualify Trump in other states have been rejected. The top court in Michigan, a pivotal battleground state in the general election, declined on Wednesday to hear an appeal on Trump's eligibility to hold office.

Maine is rated as likely Democratic by non-partisan election forecasters, meaning President Joe Biden is expected to win the state. However, Trump captured one electoral vote from Maine in both the 2016 and 2020 elections due to an unusual setup that allows the state to split its four Electoral College votes.

Candidates must win 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Advocacy groups and some anti-Trump voters have challenged Trump’s candidacy in several states under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was passed after the U.S. Civil War to keep former confederates from serving in government. Unlike other states, Bellows, who oversees elections in Maine, was required to make an initial determination about disqualification before it was considered by the courts.

Lawyers for Trump have disputed that he engaged in insurrection and argued that his remarks to supporters on the day of the 2021 riot were protected by his right to free speech. His legal team also made several procedural arguments, including that eligibility under Section 3 was not mentioned in required paperwork Trump filed to be on the ballot in the state. A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Colorado case may resolve the issue nationwide. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices nominated by Trump.