This state becomes the second to make this decision after the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court a few days ago
Trump’s campaign team announces that it will appeal the ruling and calls the Maine Secretary of State a “virulent leftist”
The Secretary of State of Maine, Shenna Bellows, who holds the main electoral position in this state, has excluded former President of the United States Donald Trump from the state-level primaries of the Republican Party for the 2024 presidential elections, considering that He is not an eligible candidate for his role in the assault on the Capitol.
“I do not come to this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred (…) I am aware that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of access to the polls based on section three of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, However, I am also aware that no presidential candidate has ever participated in an insurrection before,” he said.
Bellows, who is a Democrat, has said he concluded that Trump “over the course of several months, culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 elections and the peaceful transfer of power.”
Likewise, he has stated that the former president “was aware of the probability of violence and, at least initially, supported its use given that he encouraged it with inflammatory rhetoric and did not take any timely measures to stop it.” For this reason, he has considered that “the occasional requests” to his supporters to “be peaceful and support the application of the law (…) do not erase his conduct.”
“The events of January 6, 2021 were tragic and unprecedented. They were an attack not only on the Capitol and Government officials, but also on the rule of law. The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest of the outgoing president and with his knowledge and support. The US Constitution does not tolerate an attack on the foundations of our government,” reads a document in which it indicates that this “obliges” it to act in response.
Trump’s campaign team, which has announced that it will appeal the ruling, has denounced the measure and attacked Bellows, calling her a “virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Democrat who supports” US President Joe Biden, according to reports ‘The Hill’ newspaper.
“We are witnessing, in real time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter. Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on America’s democracy.
This decision can be appealed by Trump and it is expected that the United States Supreme Court will have to resolve this issue, since other states have rejected this position, such as Michigan or Minnesota. However, it should be noted that Maine’s position follows the line of the Colorado Supreme Court, which last week issued a surprising ruling excluding the Republican from the primaries.
The judges relied on the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits anyone who has sworn an oath to the Constitution and participated in an insurrection from holding public office again. The Secretary of State of Colorado, Jenna Griswold, promised to abide by the ruling, although it is suspended until January 4, one day before the deadline for the certification of the primaries, pending appeal.
