Former President Donald Trump is facing another challenge to his presidential campaign in Illinois after a Democrat judge in the state ruled that he should be removed from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot.
Democrat Judge Removes Trump From Illinois Presidential Ballot https://t.co/j2Snk9VXwj pic.twitter.com/gybT4aRRrz
— Daily Wire News (@DailyWireNews) February 29, 2024
Agreeing that Trump committed an insurrection with his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 protest, Judge Tracie R. Porter of the State Circuit Court in Cook County ordered the State Board of Elections to “remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the General Primary Election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed.”
Porter’s decision relied on the 14th Amendment, which prohibits people who have engaged in insurrection from holding office.
As stated in Section 3 of the Amendment, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
However, Trump has never been charged or indicted with insurrection even amid the election interference case brought against him by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The decision comes after the State Board of Elections ruled last month that Trump should be on the ballot after a group of voters tried to get his name removed using the insurrection claims. Porter’s ruling reverses that decision which was reached by four Republican members and four Democrat members of the eight-member state board..
Trump has until Friday to appeal the ruling, a step the GOP presidential candidate has vowed to take.
A spokesperson for the Trump Campaign said in a statement, saying, “The Soros-funded Democrat front-groups continue to attempt to interfere in the election and deny President Trump his rightful place on the ballot. Today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s board of elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions.”
“This is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal. In the meantime, President Trump remains on the Illinois ballot, is dominating the polls, and will Make America Great Again!” Bates added.
The question of Trump’s eligibility is currently being considered in the U.S. Supreme Court, from whom the GOP frontrunner sought redress after he was removed from the ballot in Colorado.