Voters in Illinois and Massachusetts have filed legal papers seeking to have former president Donald Trump declared ineligible to run for president under a provision of the US Constitution barring insurrectionists from federal office.
The litigation in both states is being organised by Free Speech for People, a nonprofit that has been supporting various efforts to hold Mr Trump and former members of his legal team accountable for their efforts to overturn the ex-president’s 2020 election defeat.
In the Prairie State, a group of five voters has asked the Illinois Board of Elections to reject Mr Trump’s bid to appear on the state’s primary ballot, citing what they describe as invalid candidacy paperwork that falsely states that he is qualified to serve as president of the United States.
The voters say that Mr Trump is ineligible to serve under Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that “no person shall ... hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state” if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US Constitution or gave “aid and comfort to the enemies thereof”.
Caryn Lederer, an attorney for the voters, said in a statement that the United States “faces a crisis in Trump’s bid for reelection”.
“We cannot let a candidate who revels in undermining the rule of law continue his candidacy in clear violation of a constitutional mandate. In Illinois, the electoral board has a mandatory duty to keep disqualified candidates off the ballot. As the growing consensus of legal decisions show, Trump engaged in insurrection; he cannot run for president,” she said.
A separate challenge has been filed by a group of voters in Massachusetts, who are asking the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission to bar Mr Trump from appearing on the ballot for the same reason.
The attorney for those voters, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said in a statement that the challenge to Mr Trump’s eligibility “not about partisan politics but about upholding our Constitution”.
“That is why Massachusetts voters across the political spectrum have joined together to challenge Donald Trump’s wrongful placement on the Massachusetts ballot,” she said.
“As two other states have already recognised, Donald Trump’s instigation of and participation in the insurrection three years ago provide overwhelming cause for his disqualification from holding office in the United States”.
Mr Trump is facing challenges to his eligibility in at least 16 states, with at least two thus far – Maine and Colorado – resulting in rulings against him.
The ex-president has asked the US Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court barring him from that state’s ballot, and he is also challenging a decision by Maine’s Secretary of State declaring him ineligible to run.
