Risks of US electoral chaos deepen after Trump is barred from another state ballot

CNN —

Maine pitched the 2024 election into deeper chaos and constitutional confusion Thursday by becoming the second state to throw Donald Trump off the ballot over the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.

The move from the Maine secretary of state – following a similar decision from the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month – worsened a growing crisis for Trump’s campaign and strengthened the rationale for the US Supreme Court to take up the issue, arising from the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.” It has already exacerbated the havoc already surrounding the election and could cement ever wider national divides.

The increasing uncertainty urgently needs a resolution, with Iowa poised to kick off voting in the Republican nominating race on January 15 and other key ballot deadlines looming. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, paused her decision pending a potential appeal in state court, which Trump’s team said they intend to file.

The decision came on the same day that Trump’s ascendant rival in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley, tried to stop her gaffe over slavery from turning into a momentum-killer.

The idea that a presidential candidate cannot plainly state in 2023 that the enslavement of humans is what tore the country apart more than 160 years ago is stunning in itself.

But the drama surrounding the former South Carolina governor less than three weeks before voting starts is also having the effect of easing the scrutiny on Trump — who has caused many more scandals and outrages during his gravity-defying political career, many of which are related to the 2020 election denialism behind his swirling legal exposure.

Maine’s decision only deepened the unprecedented legal and political