Former President Trump has filed a lawsuit to prevent Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson from keeping him off the state’s ballots for the 2024 presidential primary and general election.
The lawsuit was filed on Monday and seeks an injunction to prevent her from barring him from the ballot.
Trump’s legal team is also asking the court to affirm that Benson does not have legal standing to disqualify him from the ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Despite President Trump’s tremendous popularity, there are people who want to deny Michigan voters the opportunity to express their choice by voting for him,” the lawsuit says, according to a report from The Hill.
Trump’s legal team asserts that court intervention is required to “ensure he is included” on the ballots.
“There is an actual controversy, the outcome of which will determine how President Trump and his campaign allocate their resources both in Michigan and around the country,” the lawsuit asserts.
Benson has said that she is not seeking to keep Trump off the ballot, but a lawsuit was filed by the liberal organization Free Speech For People, trying to force her to do so.
Free Speech For People has partnered with an organization called Mi Familia Vota Education Fund on a project to urge Secretaries of State and chief election officials across the country to keep Trump off ballots, according to the group’s website.
Similar lawsuits have been filed in Colorado, New Hampshire, Arizona and Minnesota.
Free Speech For People is also behind the Minnesota lawsuit, which argues that Trump is ineligible to run because of the events on January 6, 2021.
“Donald J. Trump, through his words and actions, after swearing an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution, engaged in insurrection or rebellion … as defined by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the Minnesota lawsuit states. “He is disqualified from holding the presidency or any other office under the United States unless and until Congress provides him relief.”
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was created to keep Confederate leaders off the ballot after the Civil War. It has only been used once since 1919, when Victor Berger of Wisconsin was barred from being seated because he was a socialist. It states that someone cannot hold office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [U.S.], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
A Colorado court began hearing arguments this week in the case of a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington D.C.-based liberal group seeking to keep the former president off the state’s ballots.
