With two months to go before its presidential election primary, Illinois could join Colorado and Maine in barring former President Donald Trump from the state’s primary and general elections.
A group of five Illinois voters filed a petition on Jan. 4 seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s primary and general election ballots.
Voting rights group Free Speech For People filed the objection on behalf of the voters.
The petitioners say Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, 2021 — when his supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol — violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which disqualifies candidates who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government or provided “aid or comfort” to people participating in an insurrection.
“Our predecessors understood that oath-breaking insurrectionists will do it again, and worse, if allowed back into power,” Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People, said in a statement.
Many Republican officials, including U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Oakland), have argued that voters, not state leaders, should decide whether Trump returns to the White House.
Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy called the objection an “anti-democracy attempt to limit the voting rights of Illinois citizens” in a statement to television station WCIA.
The Illinois State Board of Elections has not specified when it will evaluate the petition. But the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether Trump can be left off states’ election ballots on Feb. 8, more than a month before Illinois’ primary on March 19.
Trump campaign spokesman Steve Cheung said in a statement that nationwide efforts to erase Trump from ballots would “disenfranchise” voters.
“We are confident that the fair-minded Supreme Court will unanimously affirm the civil rights of President Trump,” he added.
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