Illinois officials to weigh whether to boot Trump off ballot

The Illinois State Board of Elections is expected to vote Tuesday on whether former President Trump should be removed from the state’s primary ballot under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The forthcoming decision comes after retired Republican judge Clark Erickson, who oversaw a hearing on Friday, recommended on Sunday that the state’s election board dismiss voters’ petition to remove Trump from the ballot, arguing the board did not have time or authority to properly consider the matter before the March 19 primary.

He said there was “no opportunity for meaningful discovery or subpoena of witnesses” and that state laws “prohibit the Election Board from addressing issues involving constitutional analysis.”

Erickson wrote, however, that there is a “preponderance of evidence” that Trump engaged in insurrection, and, if the state election board does not agree with his reasoning to dismiss the voters’ petition, the board should remove his name from the ballot.

“In the event that the Board decides to not follow the Hearing Officer’s recommendation to grant the Candidate’s Motion to Dismiss, the Hearing Officer recommends that the Board find that the evidence presented at the hearing on January 26, 2024 proves by a preponderance of the evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection, within the meaning of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and should have his name removed from the March, 2024 primary ballot in Illinois,” Erickson wrote.

The Illinois petition, brought by Free Speech for People on behalf of Illinois voters, is one of several similar efforts in states across the country. Rulings in Colorado and Maine both determined Trump is ineligible to hold public office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court will review the Colorado case next month, and the Maine case is on hold pending that decision.

Erickson’s decision is a scathing rebuke against Trump and his actions on Jan. 6.

About Trump, he wrote that “Even though the Candidate may not have intended for violence to break out on January 6, 2021, he does not dispute that he received reports that violence was a likely possibility on January 6, 2021. Candidate does not dispute that he knew violence was occurring at the capitol. He understood that people were there to support him.”

Therefore, Erickson wrote, Trump’s tweet at 2:24 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021 — that former Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” — is “absolutely damning to his denial of his participation.”

Trump “knew the attacks were occurring because the attackers believed the election was stolen, and this tweet could not possibly have had any other intended purpose besides to fan the flames,” Erickson wrote.

“While it is true that subsequently, but not immediately afterwards, Candidate tweeted calls to peace, he did so only after he had fanned the flames. The Hearing Officer determines that these calls to peace via social media, coming after an inflammatory tweet, are the product of trying to give himself plausible deniability.”