Voters in Illinois have filed a petition to remove Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot, echoing efforts in other states to bar the former president from returning to the White House over his role in the 6 January Capitol attack.
The petition, similar to those filed in more than a dozen other states, relies on the 14th amendment to the constitution.
Known as the “insurrection clause”, the amendment prohibits anyone from holding office who previously took an oath to defend the constitution and then later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country or gave “aid or comfort” to its enemies.
The 87-page document, signed by five people from around the state, lays out a case that Trump fanned the flames of hardcore supporters who attacked the Capitol on the day Congress certified the election results for his rival, Joe Biden.
Officials in Colorado and Maine have already banned Trump’s name from primary election ballots.
The Illinois state board of elections has yet to set the petition for hearing, spokesperson Matt Dietrich told the Associated Press. The board is set to hear 32 other objections to the proposed ballot later in January.
Also on Thursday, a group of voters in Massachusetts launched an effort to remove Trump from that state’s primary ballot.
Both efforts are affiliated with the advocacy group Free Speech for People, CNN reported.
Trump has appealed the Maine ruling. He also has asked the US supreme court to overturn the Colorado supreme court’s ruling from December that stripped his name from the state’s ballot.
In a filing on Wednesday, his lawyers wrote: “In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct.” They also argued that Trump’s conduct did not amount to an insurrection.
A supreme court could rule to either pause or allow the Colorado supreme court’s decision in the coming weeks, though the exact timing is unclear.
