Former United States President Donald Trump on Thursday was disqualified from the Maine state ballot for next year’s presidential primary election, reported Reuters. The state’s top election official cited his role in inciting an insurrection after the 2020 presidential election.
Through primary elections, American voters can indicate their preference for a candidate to contest elections from a particular political party.
Maine has become the second state to bar Trump from contesting the polls on account of his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Colorado had ruled that Trump was not eligible to run for elections due to his role in the attack.
The January 6, 2021 attack occurred two months after Democrat leader Joe Biden was elected as the next president of the United States in the 2020 presidential polls. Trump, who was then the outgoing president, claimed that the polls were not fair and that there was a conspiracy to stop him from winning a second term.
Trump’s assertion led to his supporters storming the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, to prevent Biden from being certified as the next president by the two houses of the legislature.
On Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced the decision to disqualify Trump citing a clause in the US Constitution that bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.
“Democracy is sacred, and the highest court of this State has repeatedly recognized that ‘no right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live,’” Bellows said. “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.”
However, the decision will be put on hold until Maine’s trial-level court makes a ruling within 20 days, reported CNN.
Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung alleged Democrats, in states ruled by them, were “recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot”.
He also described Bellows as a “virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat”.
Trump is also facing criminal charges for his role in the January 6 attack. He was charged with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections by a court in Washington in August. The same month another court in Georgia also indicted him on similar charges.
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