SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A petition filed Thursday by five voters seeks to bar former President Donald Trump from Illinois' Republican primary in March, claiming he is ineligible for office because of his January 6, 2021, attack on the Republican administration has encouraged and done little about it. US Capitol.
The petition, similar to those filed in more than a dozen other states, is based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits anyone from holding office who has previously taken an oath to defend the Constitution and later ” committed rebellion or rebellion” against the country or gave “aid or comfort” to its enemies.
The 87-page document, signed by five people from across the state, lays out a case in which Trump, after losing the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, fanned the flames of hardcore supporters who attacked the Capitol on the day it Congress announced the election results. . The riot left five dead and more than a hundred injured.
Officials in Colorado and Maine have already banned Trump's name from primary ballots. Trump on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's December ruling that struck his name from the state's ballot.
The Illinois State Board of Elections had yet to prepare the petition for a hearing Thursday afternoon, spokesman Matt Dietrich said. The board will address 32 other objections to the proposed vote at its Jan. 11 meeting.