Should Trump be banned from ballot in North Carolina? State courts could soon decide
North Carolina courts could soon decide whether to ban former President Donald Trump from appearing on ballots in the 2024 elections due to a new legal filing Friday in Wake County Superior Court.
State elections officials approved Trump's name for the Republican Party primary earlier this month, denying a challenge filed by a voter who claimed Trump is ineligible to serve as president again due to the 14th Amendment's ban on insurrectionists holding federal office. The election board's vote to keep Trump on the ballot was 4-1, with both Republican members and two of the three Democratic members voting to deny the challenge.
But that decision from the elections board was appealed on Friday, setting the stage for state courts to take up the question — as other states have recently begun doing.
Friday's appeal argues that it's unfair to GOP voters in North Carolina to allow Trump to take part in the primary. Specifically, it says, Trump supporters will have been deprived of their right to back a different candidate who's actually eligible to serve as president.
"The voters in the Republican primary on March 5, 2024, have a right to choose from constitutionally eligible candidates," the legal filing says. "If one were to vote for Donald Trump, and he is not eligible to hold the office of president, their vote will not count. Their vote will be a wasted vote, will not play a part in the selection of the next president, and such a result in constitutionally unacceptable."
The appeal came a day after Maine became the second state to decide that Trump shouldn't be allowed on the ballot in 2024 due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress. Colorado made a similar decision earlier this month. Both the Maine and Colorado decisions are on hold, however, pending a likely ruling on the issue by the U.S. Supreme Court. But other states have ruled that Trump can appear on their voters' ballots in 2024 — including North Carolina, although that decision is now under appeal, as well as Michigan and California.
The North Carolina challenge, as well as Friday's appeal, were both filed by Brian Martin, a Stokes County retiree who previously served as a top lawyer in the administrations of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Martin told WRAL in an interview following the Board of Elections decision earlier this month that he believed it's nonsensical for the state's top elections officials to claim it they have no power to stop a political party from nominating anyone for president, regardless of whether they're legally qualified.
"I thought it was remarkable that they determined the Republican Party can list any candidate for president of the United States, and the board has no authority to determine if they’re qualified for office," he said at the time. "So essentially a party could nominate a 21-year-old, or a foreign national, and there’s nothing they can do?"
The state's top Republican politicians don't want the board making any such decisions.
North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, who is running for a seat in Congress in 2024, said that when the legislature returns to session he will consider introducing a bill to make sure that the elections board has no power to ban Trump, or anyone else, from running for office.
When the State Board of Elections shot down the challenge against Trump earlier this month, some board members said they believed they didn't have the power to decide who can run in a primary election. But they left the door open for themselves to consider banning Trump from running in the general election, if he wins the GOP primary.
Moore said that's why a new law might be necessary to protect Trump in North Carolina, a key swing state that Trump won with 49.9% of the vote in 2020.
"It was wise that the state board denied of elections denied it," Moore previously told reporters. "But it was sort of a temporary denial, if you will. ... We think the law should be pretty clear that President Trump will be on the ballot."
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has also said he's considering filing a bill that would strip federal funding from any states that don't let Trump on the ballot.
