Maine officers are reviewing Donald Trump’s eligibility for 2024 poll
AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s secretary of state and lawyer normal stated Thursday they’re reviewing state statutes to find out if former President Donald Trump is eligible to seem on the 2024 poll amid calls in numerous states for the Republican to be disqualified for stoking the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Lawyer Normal Aaron Frey, each Democrats, stated in a press release concerning “14th Modification election legislation questions” that they’re “working collectively to analysis and analyze the authorized necessities for poll entry, together with presidential poll entry, as we do prior to each main election.”
“Any choices about poll entry will probably be made dispassionately on the correct time in accordance with the legal guidelines and the Structure, which will probably be our sole consideration,” the 2 officers stated, with out mentioning Trump.
Part 3 of the 14th Modification to the U.S. Structure says no one that has beforehand taken an oath of workplace “shall have engaged in revolt or revolt in opposition to the identical, or given assist or consolation to the enemies thereof.” Congress can take away that prohibition with a two-thirds vote in every chamber, per the Structure.
That part is resulting in requires secretaries of state across the nation to disqualify Trump from showing on the 2024 presidential poll. Maine’s presidential main is about for March 5, 2024.
Trump, who stays the clear GOP frontrunner, has been indicted in 4 pending circumstances alleging he sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden within the run-up to the Jan. 6 riot, mishandled labeled paperwork, tried to reverse his election loss in Georgia and made hush cash funds to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Just a few conservative authorized students have stated Trump is constitutionally barred from operating for president as a consequence of encouraging the “revolt” on the Capitol, however different specialists have stated nothing is stopping Trump — the primary former president indicted in U.S. historical past — from operating for workplace and serving once more.
Prime election officers in a number of states are reviewing or getting ready for potential challenges to Trump’s poll eligibility. The Democratic secretary of state in Arizona stated Wednesday he doesn’t have the flexibility to bar Trump as a consequence of a earlier Arizona Supreme Court docket case that discovered there isn’t any statutory course of to implement Part 3 of the 14th Modification.
Nearer to Maine, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan’s workplace obtained a flood of calls from Trump supporters after Scanlan, a Republican, met with a former GOP state Senate candidate who’s contemplating difficult Trump’s eligibility.
