The top election official of the Maine state has declared former US president Donald Trump ineligible for the state elections, removing him from the 2024 primary ballot over his involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maine becomes the second state to disqualify Trump from office, after the Colorado Supreme Court removed the former president from the ballot earlier this month, reported CNN<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The development is a significant victory for Trump\u2019s critics, who, citing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, say they\u2019re trying to enforce a constitutional provision that was designed to protect the country from anti-democratic insurrectionists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maine\u00b4s top election official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, said in her ruling that the events of January 6, 2021 “occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing President.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The US Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government and (Maine law) requires me to act in response,” read the ruling, which came in response to challenges filed by a handful of Maine voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rulings in both states invoked the US Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment, which bars from office anyone formerly sworn to protect the country who later engages in insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” wrote Bellows, a Democrat. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u00b4s campaign quickly slammed Bellows\u00b4 ruling as “attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter” and called her a “virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “These partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement, accusing President Joe Biden and Democrats of “relying on the force of government institutions to protect their grip on power.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cheung said Trump would appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The top election official of the Maine state has declared former US president Donald Trump ineligible for the state elections, removing him from the 2024 primary ballot over his involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Maine becomes the second state to disqualify Trump from office, after the Colorado Supreme Court removed the former president from the ballot earlier this month, reported CNN. The development is a significant victory for Trump\u2019s critics, who, citing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, say they\u2019re trying to enforce a constitutional…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awamimission.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}