Wisconsin election officials on Friday rejected an effort to remove former president Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
Wisconsin Democratic Assembly candidate Kirk Bangstad, who owns a brewery in Madison, filed a complaint arguing that Trump’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol Riot violated his presidential oath and made him ineligible to be president. Bangstad claimed that Trump engaged in an insurrection against the United States and that his case necessitated the activation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that bars such an individual from holding office again.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission dismissed the complaint under a procedural technicality.
“The complaint was disposed of without consideration by the Commission,” Wisconsin Election Commission spokesman Riley Vetterkind said in a statement. “It is the position of the Commission that a complaint against the Commission, against Commissioners in their official capacities, or against Commission staff, warrants an ethical recusal by the body.”
Besides the Wisconsin situation, other states have attempted to kick Trump off their ballots, with a few succeeding pending future litigation.
The Michigan Supreme Court recently declined to review a similar challenge to Wisconsin’s. On Friday, Democratic California secretary of state Shirley Weber decided to keep Trump on the state’s 2024 primary ballot despite increasing calls for him to be disqualified from a second term due to his alleged incitement of January 6.
Weber was responding to Democratic California lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis’s urging to “explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot” following the Colorado supreme court’s decision. The Colorado court last week voted 4–3 to disallow Trump from appearing as a candidate on Colorado’s ballot, claiming he violated the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment.
Most recently, Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows ruled that Trump is ineligible to become president again, therefore removing him from the state’s primary ballot. Bellows, a Democratic official who was elected by the state legislature in 2020, served as executive director for the Maine ACLU from 2005 to 2013, Forbes reported. Before becoming secretary of state, she led an unsuccessful election campaign against Republican senator Susan Collins.
“The events of January 6, 2021 were unprecedented and tragic,” Bellows wrote in her Thursday night decision. “They were an attack not only upon the Capitol and government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law. The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing President. The U.S. Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government, and [Maine law] requires me to act in response.”
In the ruling, Bellows invoked her authority as secretary of state to “keep unqualified candidates off the primary election ballot.” The Trump campaign vowed it would appeal the Maine ruling. Meanwhile, Trump is currently set to appear on the Colorado ballot while the state GOP appeals the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.