In what CNN calls "a shock decision based on the 14th Amendment’s 'insurrectionist ban,'" Maine’s top election official has officially removed Donald Trump from the state's 2024 primary ballot, following Colorado's lead after their Supreme Court made the same ruling last week.
In Maine's 34-page decision on the matter, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows writes, "The U.S. Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government," concluding, per Reuters, that "Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, incited an insurrection when he spread false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and then urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote."
“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows says. “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.”
In a responding statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung accused Bellows of being a “virulent leftist” who has now “decided to interfere in the presidential election.”
“Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot,” Cheung furthered.
