Unanimously agreeing that it did not have the authority to determine former President Donald Trump’s presidential eligibility, the Illinois Board of Elections decided to let him remain on the state’s ballot.
Illinois elections board votes to keep former President Trump on primary ballot https://t.co/y2AjsUynWu pic.twitter.com/DXJjBUpptW
— The Hill (@thehill) January 30, 2024
The board, which is made of four Republicans and four Democrats, voted 8-0 to elt the courts handle the question of Trump’s eligibility.
“I think that we do not have jurisdiction to wade into the constitutional issue to decide the question of whether the candidate engaged in insurrection in violation of Section Three [of the 14th Amendment]. Therefore, I further move that we deny the motion for summary judgment, grant the motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, and therefore overrule the objection,” board member Jack Vrett stated before the vote.
Board member Catherine McCrory said that she believes that Trump was guilty of the insurrection accusations but that the board lacks jurisdiction to disqualify him based on that.
In her words, “I want it to be clear that this Republican believes there was an insurrection on Jan. 6. There’s no doubt in my mind that he manipulated, instigated, aided and abetted an insurrection of Jan. 6. However, having said that, it’s not my place to rule on that today. So I will say ‘yes’ to the motion, as far as not having jurisdiction to rule on that.”
The petitioners who brought up the case, a group of voters represented by the national nonprofit Free Speech For People, alleged that Trump had committed an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 and was ineligible to run for president based on section three of the 14th Amendment.
However, Trump’s attorneys argued that the board lacked the constitutional authority to rule on the former president’s eligibility.
With Trump’s eligibility in Illinois untouched, he will be appearing on the state’s ballot for the GOP presidential primary as scheduled on March 19. While the petitioners’ lawyers have vowed to appeal the board’s ruling in a state court, the outcome of that is yet to be seen.
The board’s decision came as a relief to Trump, who is fighting rulings that deemed him ineligible to run for president in Colorado and Maine last year.
Reacting to the decision from Illinois, he praised the board for protecting voters from “the Radical Left Lunatics who are trying to destroy it.”
The VOTE was 8-0 in favor of keeping your favorite President (ME!), on the Ballot. I love Illinois. Make America Great Again!” he added in a post on Truth Social.