Maine secretary of state rules Trump ineligible for state's 2024 primary ballot

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has ruled that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.

Bellows, a Democrat, issued her decision on three challenges brought by Maine voters, including three politicians, over the nomination petition of Trump for the GOP primary.

Bellows upheld the two challenges that sought to bar Trump from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. She rejected one that hinged on the 22nd Amendment

“I conclude that Mr. Trump's primary petition is invalid,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “Specifically, I find that the declaration on his candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Bellows went on to say in her decision that «the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.»

Bellows concluded that Trump's «occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement» did not «immunize his actions. A brief call to obey the law does not erase conduct over the course of months, culminating in his speech on the Ellipse. The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to