Tracking State Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 Ballot

Formal challenges to Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy have been filed in at least 33 states, according to a New York Times review of court records and other documents. Mr. Trump was disqualified from the primary ballot in Colorado and Maine pending appeals, but many other challenges have been dismissed or have not progressed in court. Beyond Colorado and Maine at least 17 states have unresolved challenges.

The ballot challenges focus on whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat make him ineligible to hold the presidency again. Those cases are based on an obscure and largely untested clause of a constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War that disqualifies government officials who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of state, a Democrat, both found Mr. Trump ineligible under that provision. Mr. Trump, who is leading in Republican primary polls, can appeal those decisions. His campaign has described the attempts to remove him from the ballot as unconstitutional and antidemocratic.

Several judges have dismissed cases at the request of Mr. Trump or the request of the person who filed the challenge. The Michigan and Minnesota Supreme Courts have both said Mr. Trump is eligible to appear on the primary ballot in those states.

Source: Elections - nytimes.com