Maine Secretary of State appeals ruling delaying decision to remove Trump from ballot

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows appealed a ruling on Friday that delays determining whether or not former President Donald Trump can be removed from the 2024 primary ballot under the 14th amendment. 

Last month, Bellows removed Trump from Maine's primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause. Trump appealed the decision to the state court. 

Earlier this week, a judge ruled that Trump can stay on the ballot until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision about a similar case where the former president was removed from the Colorado ballot. 

Bellows argued that this decision by the local court would put Maine in a “precarious position."

“A stay of this proceeding, followed by a February decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, may ultimately force the Secretary and her staff to scramble to minimize damage to the integrity of the March 5, 2024 election,” the Maine attorney general’s office, representing Bellows, wrote according to The Hill.

After Bellows removed Trump from the ballot, the Maine GOP chairman, Joel Stetkis, said the party would appeal the decision. 

“This political activism by Shenna Bellows, it’s not going to stand,” he said in a statement last month. 

Other states have also seen attempts to remove the former president from the ballot in 2024, arguing that Trump engaged in an insurrection during the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot in 2021.  Only the cases in Colorado and Maine have succeeded so far, and both are being appealed.