Trump remains on the ballot in Illinois, state Assembly rules

The Illinois State Board of Elections on Tuesday dismissed a complaint seeking to bar former President Donald J. Trump from the state's primary ballot.

The eight-member board unanimously determined that it did not have the authority to decide whether Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection, the basis for the complaint. His ruling can be appealed to the court.

The board had appointed a former Republican judge, Clark Erickson, to hear arguments in the case. In an op-ed made public this weekend, Mr. Erickson said he believed Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection by trying to stay in office after losing the 2020 election. But Mr. Erickson said he did not believe the board had the authority to disqualify Mr. Trump on those grounds, and that the question should instead be left to the courts.

Mr. Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, has faced official challenges to his candidacy in 35 states and has so far failed to qualify for primaries in two of them, Colorado and Maine. It is likely that Trump will still appear on the primary ballots in both states, as the exclusion decisions are on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court hears an appeal of the Colorado ruling.

The challenge in Illinois, like those in other states, is based on a clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars government officials who “engage in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

At a hearing last week in downtown Chicago, lawyers for Illinois residents objecting to Trump's candidacy accused the former president of insurrection. They played video footage of the riot by Trump supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump denied that he was involved in an insurrection and argued that the constitutional clause in question did not apply to the presidency anyway.

In his written opinion, Mr. Erickson advised the board to dismiss the voters' complaint about Mr. Trump, saying Illinois Supreme Court precedent prevented the Board of Elections from engaging in the “significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis” necessary would be to reach a verdict. . But if the board disagreed with him on the issue of jurisdiction, Mr. Erickson said he believed they should disqualify Mr. Trump from the primary ballot.

Mr. Erickson, who reviewed the findings of the Colorado Supreme Court and the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol riot, detailed the 14th Amendment case against Mr. Trump in his opinion.

“The evidence shows that President Trump understood the divisive political climate in the United States,” Mr. Erickson wrote, adding that Mr. Trump “exploited that climate for his own political gain by falsely and publicly claiming that the election belonged to him were stolen, even though every single piece of evidence showed his claim to be demonstrably false.

Illinois, a Democratic stronghold in presidential politics, is not expected to be competitive in the November general election. But it's a delegate-rich state where Republican primaries could help Trump clinch his party's nomination.

Many observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to make the final decision on whether Mr. Trump is eligible. Oral arguments in court in the Colorado appeal are scheduled for February 8.

In the meantime, with primary season underway and Trump holding a large lead on the Republican side, eligibility issues remain unresolved in more than fifteen states.