AUGUSTA, Maine — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wants a state judge to make a quick ruling on whether former President Donald Trump is eligible for the Maine primary ballot rather than wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide a similar case.
Bellows, a Democrat, gained national attention and prompted Republican outrage in late December when she made Maine the second state to disqualify Trump after Colorado by ruling him ineligible for the 2024 primary ballot under the insurrection clause of 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for inciting the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump appealed that ruling to the state Superior Court in Augusta. This week, Trump’s campaign argued in a filing that Justice Michaela Murphy should hold off on a decision until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling on the Colorado case that will settle the question of Trump’s eligibility across the country.
Bellows opposed that idea in a response filed with the court on Monday, noting that the high court will hear the case on Feb. 8, less than a month before the March 5 primary here. That may leave little time to notify voters that ballots cast for Trump will not count if he remains unqualified for the Maine ballot after the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Voters in the Republican primary, including those who had already cast a vote by that point, may therefore also suffer harm [if Murphy delays a ruling],” Bellows’ filing reads, which was signed by Attorney General Aaron Frey and two other lawyers in his office.
For now, Bellows plans to include Trump’s name on the Republican primary ballot. State law lays out a process to notify voters through local election officials if a candidate on the ballot has withdrawn from the election or is no longer eligible.
Trump’s legal team has attacked Bellows as a “biased decisionmaker” who should have recused herself, though the secretary of state has retorted that the campaign missed a deadline to formally ask her to step away from the case.
Legislative Republicans have criticized Bellows’ status as a 2020 elector for President Joe Biden, but the Maine House of Representatives shot down their effort to impeach the secretary of state on Tuesday. Just one Republican voted with Democrats to kill that measure.