The New Yorker:

Three state lawsuits could stop the former President from appearing on 2024 ballots—but they could also backfire.

By Sue Halpern 

Two and a half months ago, the top election official in Minnesota, Steve Simon, received a letter from Free Speech for People (F.S.F.P.), a small nonpartisan organization that advocates for democratic principles. The letter asked Simon, as secretary of state, to do something that has never been done before: prevent a former President, Donald Trump, from appearing on the state’s 2024 election ballots. “Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Trump is constitutionally ineligible to appear on any future ballot for federal office based on his engagement in insurrection against the United States,” it said. “Allowing a known insurrectionist to appear on the ballot is inconsistent with your prior commitments and your oath of office to support the U.S. Constitution.”

Simon, a Democrat, wasn’t so sure. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment says that anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, and then participates in an insurrection—or gives aid or comfort to those who have—is disqualified from holding any office, civil or military. But Simon told me that he does not take a position on the eligibility of individual candidates. He wanted a judge to decide whether the ballots could feature Trump’s name. “Our job is to serve the voters, and for courts to do the fact-finding and make conclusions of law,” he told me. “There is an expectation here that the person who holds this office will leave their politics at the door . . . and not do anything that creates the appearance of putting their thumb on the scale for any candidate, any political party, or any ballot question.”

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