NYS Senators Call on the Board of Elections to Exclude Insurrectionist Donald Trump From the 2024 Ballot

NEW YORK — Yesterday, State Senators Brad Hoylman-Sigal (Manhattan-D/WFP) and Liz Krueger (Manhattan-D/WFP) led a letter urging the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) to exclude Donald J. Trump from the New York presidential primary and general election ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court is currently weighing a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to Trump’s ballot eligibility. 

Last year, the House of Representatives’ January 6 committee found that Trump “lit the fire” of the violent January 6 insurrection. The Senators allege the former president’s actions make him ineligible to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that no candidate can hold office who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. This “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause” therefore disqualifies Trump from the ballot.  

The letter states: “Having sworn an oath to support the Constitution as an officer of the United States, he then ‘engaged’ in the violent January 6 insurrection as that term is defined by law and precedent. As a result, Trump is now ineligible to hold any ‘office . . . under the United States,’ including the presidency, unless and until he is relieved of that disqualification by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress.”

Along with the letter, Free Speech For People collected over 14,000 petition signatures from New Yorkers calling on the New York State Board of Elections to enforce section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Trump from the 2024 New York presidential primary ballot and general election ballot. 
 

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