New Hampshire will not block former President Donald Trump from appearing as a candidate in the state’s Republican primary election in 2024, the secretary of state has said, according to a Fox News report.
Several left-wing commentators and Democratic elected officials have called for Trump to be disqualified from primary elections under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars persons who have “given aid or comfort” to persons who have staged an insurrection against the U.S. Government. In a press conference on Wednesday, Republican Secretary of State Dave Scanlan of New Hampshire said that the state would not block Trump from the primary ballot because of these claims, according to a report by Fox News.
“[If Trump] submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it under the penalties of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the presidential primary ballot,” Scanlan said. “That language is not discretionary.”
A lawsuit against the state to block Trump, sponsored by left-wing groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), has already been filed in Colorado ahead of its primary. Trump is currently the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and leads polls of voters across several states.
In New Hampshire, a longshot presidential candidate named John Castro filed a lawsuit seeking to preclude Trump from the ballot, Fox reported. Left-wing groups have contacted election officials in nine states seeking to have Trump’s candidacy disqualified along these lines, according to the report.
Some Democrats have been critical of unilateral attempts to block Trump from the ballot. “[T]hat view is misguided. Whether Trump is eligible to run for president again is a decision not for secretaries of state but for the courts,” wrote Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, a key swing state, in The Washington Post.
This was echoed by Democratic Secretary of State Scott Simon of Minnesota, who wrote that his office “does not have legal authority to investigate a candidate’s eligibility for office,” he wrote, CBS News reported on Sept. 7.
Trump was impeached in 2021 for “incitement of insurrection” by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. After a trial in the Senate, he was acquitted of this charge.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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