Illinois board votes unanimously to keep Trump on primary ballot
The Illinois board of elections has voted unanimously to keep Donald Trump on its primary ballot, rejecting objections brought by voters who challenged Trump’s eligibility on grounds that he had aided in insurrection on January 6.
The decision was made on narrow procedural grounds, and is almost certain to be appealed. It is just the latest in a mixed series of official rulings on whether Trump can appear on the ballot amid a wave of challenges to his candidacy in multiple states.
Officials in Colorado and Maine have ruled that Trump cannot appear on their ballots, though those decisions are facing further legal challenges, while Illinois becomes the latest state where officials have rejected attempts to boot Trump from the ballot.
The US supreme court has scheduled oral arguments on this question for next week, and will likely have the final say on whether Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run for president because of his actions leading up to the January 6 attack at the US Capitol.
At issue in this particular case was the question of whether or not the board of elections has the authority and jurisdiction to interpret constitutional questions. Matthew Piers, an attorney representing the objectors, argued the board “not only has the authority to determine an objection based on the United States constitution, but indeed you have the clear mandatory duty to do so”.
Adam Merrill, Trump’s counsel, flatly denied Trump had participated in insurrection and argued the elections board could not make a determination on the question anyway.
One Republican member of the bipartisan board made it clear that her decision was based on the question of whether the state board had the authority to weigh in on this question, not on whether Trump should be disqualified.
“I want it to be clear that this Republican believes there was an insurrection on January 6,” declared GOP board member Catherine McCrory. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he manipulated, instigated, aided and abetted an insurrection on January 6. However, having said that, it is not my place to rule on that today.”
The Illinois petitioners calling for Trump to be excluded from the Illinois ballot argued he is disqualified from office given article 3 of the 14th amendment, which states that any public official who has taken an oath of allegiance to the constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or given “aid or comfort” to its enemies must be disqualified from running for office again.
In their 87-page petition, the Illinois voters said the January 6 attack was insurrectionary – and that “the effort to overthrow the results of the 2020 election by unlawful means” amounted to rebellion.
On 28 January, Clark Erickson, a hearing officer for the board of elections tasked with evaluating the ballot challenge, said he agreed that Trump had committed insurrection and should be disqualified from appearing on the ballot – but that the matter should be left to a higher court.
The attorney representing the challengers seeking to remove Trump from the ballot indicated immediately after the decision that the petitioners would appeal it in court.
Petitioners in more than a dozen states have invoked the 14th amendment to attempt to bar Trump from the ballot in 2024 on grounds that his involvement with the January 6 insurrection disqualifies him from office. Ratified in the wake of the civil war,
the 14th amendment also establishes birthright citizenship and guarantees everyone in the US “equal protection” under the law.
Trump’s lawyers have asked the US supreme court to put a “swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts”, which, they argued, “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans”.
The Trump campaign has similarly argued the push to disqualify him from ballots across the US amounts to an unfair and anti-democratic campaign by his detractors.