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Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission Dismisses Attempt To Bar Donald Trump From State Ballot

January 23, 2024

The Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission has dismissed a legal challenge seeking to keep Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot in March.

The commission said in a nine-page decision Monday that it lacks jurisdiction to toss Trump, because his name will appear on the ballot “as a result of the Republican State Committee’s submission of his name to the Secretary of the Commonwealth,” and not through nomination papers over which the commission has jurisdiction.

“I applaud the Massachusetts Ballot Commission for its decision to allow voters to choose their nominee for president,” Massachusetts Republican Party chairwoman Amy Carnevale said in a press release. “The ill-conceived effort to remove a presidential candidate from the ballot would have undercut our system of democracy. The decision of who Massachusetts should choose as the Republican nominee for President of the United States will now rely squarely with the voters, as it should.”

Several Trump opponents filed a challenge January 4 seeking to remove Trump’s name from the ballot, claiming that he is disqualified under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because, according to them, he incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters occupied the U.S. Capitol.

The Colorado Supreme Court on December 19, 2023, issued a ruling on a 4-3 vote barring Trump from the ballot in that state on similar grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments for an appeal of that decision on Thursday, February 8.

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