(WatchDogReport.org) – An Illinois judge has reversed a decision to allow Donald Trump to remain on the ballot. Illinois is now the third state after Colorado and Maine to cite insurrectionism as a reason to remove the former president from the ballot approaching the 2024 presidential election.
Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter made the decision a month after the Illinois State Board of Elections dismissed the challenge against Trump. Porter gave the order on February 28 and pressed the board to remove Trump or ensure votes for him were suppressed, claiming he violated section three of the 14th Amendment by engaging in insurrection.
In January, Clark Erickson, a retired Republican judge for Kankakee County, recommended Trump’s removal from the ballot to the state’s Electoral Board, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Erickson claimed that there was a “preponderance of the evidence” of Trump’s engagement in insurrection in connection with the Jan. 6 events at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Porter sided with voters calling for Trump’s removal from the ballot but has delayed the ruling from taking effect in anticipation of Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision. The Colorado and Maine verdicts are also on hold while Trump appeals.
It is expected that the Supreme Court will reject the states’ requests to have the former president removed from their ballots. The Supreme Court has already made clear its skepticism over attempts to remove Trump from the Colorado ballot. Chief Justice John Roberts argued that it was a daunting prospect to conceive that only a handful of states would be able to decide the result of the election. Roberts expressed concern that states could regularly disqualify candidates from parties that they opposed.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign responded to the Illinois decision reversal by calling it unconstitutional and confirming that they would appeal. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan asked what a state was doing dictating which candidate people could vote for. Porter stressed that the decision was not taken lightly and that the court was aware of the decision’s magnitude. The court has until June to decide whether or not Trump can be prosecuted for alleged election interference.
On Monday, March 4, the Supreme Court ruled against Colorado, making it so that no state can ban Trump from their ballots based on the 14th Amendment.
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