Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday ruled former President Donald Trump ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, making Maine the second state in less than two weeks to conclude that the Constitution’s insurrection clause disqualifies the Republican frontrunner. The ruling immediately elevated a dispute that had already moved beyond ordinary election administration into a question with national constitutional consequences.

Bellows’ decision followed formal challenges filed by Maine voters and a state-law process that required the secretary of state to determine whether Trump’s primary petition was valid. In an interview after issuing the ruling, Bellows told Maine Public that the evidence presented to her showed the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol occurred with Trump’s knowledge and support. She concluded that Section 3, which bars certain officeholders who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion, applied to Trump.

The decision is consequential even though Maine has only four electoral votes. Unlike most states, Maine can split its electoral votes by congressional district, and Trump won one of those votes in 2020. More immediately, however, the ruling affects the state’s March 5 Republican primary and intensifies uncertainty for election officials who must print ballots while courts consider competing interpretations of a constitutional provision written after the Civil War.

A state election ruling with national consequences

The Maine decision came nine days after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Trump was disqualified from that state’s Republican primary ballot. The Colorado court’s opinion held that the presidency is an office under the United States for purposes of Section 3 and that Trump had engaged in insurrection through his conduct surrounding January 6. The Colorado ruling was stayed to allow time for U.S. Supreme Court review.

Bellows reached a similar conclusion through a different institutional path. Unlike Colorado, where voters pursued litigation in state court, Maine law gives the secretary of state a quasi-judicial role in reviewing challenges to presidential primary petitions. The full Maine ruling found that Trump’s candidate consent declaration was invalid because he was constitutionally disqualified from holding the presidency.

The decision also drew immediate attention because Bellows is an elected partisan official. Trump’s attorneys had asked her to recuse herself, citing prior public statements about January 6. Bellows rejected that request as untimely and said she could decide the case impartially. The ruling itself is suspended while Trump has an opportunity to appeal through Maine’s courts, meaning his name is not immediately removed while judicial review proceeds.

Section 3 moves from history to the center of the 2024 campaign

Section 3 was adopted in 1868 and was designed to prevent former federal and state officials who had sworn constitutional oaths and then joined or aided rebellion from returning to public office. Its modern application to a former president is largely untested, which is why the Colorado and Maine decisions have generated sharply different legal arguments over who can enforce the provision, whether it applies to the presidency, and what conduct satisfies the constitutional standard.

The factual record around January 6 is unusually extensive. Congress’ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack assembled hearings, transcripts and a final report that remain available through GovInfo. Trump disputes the characterization of his conduct as insurrection and argues that efforts to exclude him from ballots are legally and democratically improper. His campaign said it would challenge the Maine ruling.

Other states have reached different conclusions. Courts in Minnesota and Michigan have allowed Trump to remain on primary ballots, while challenges have been filed elsewhere. That divergence is one reason legal observers increasingly expect the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. As the Associated Press reported through PBS NewsHour, Maine is the first state where an election official, rather than a court, has independently disqualified Trump under Section 3.

Ballot deadlines create pressure for a rapid answer

The practical problem is timing. Republican primaries begin in January, Super Tuesday arrives March 5, and state officials need definitive rules before ballots are finalized. The Colorado Republican Party has already asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Colorado ruling, while Trump is expected to seek review as well. The Court therefore has a path to address a question that could otherwise produce conflicting state-by-state outcomes.

The stakes extend beyond Trump. A ruling on Section 3 could define the authority of state election officials and courts to judge federal candidate eligibility, establish whether the presidency falls within the clause’s language, and determine whether congressional legislation is required before the provision may be enforced. Those questions involve the structure of federal elections as much as the conduct of one candidate.

The Associated Press noted that most election officials confronting similar challenges have declined to remove Trump while national litigation develops. Maine’s decision therefore makes the constitutional conflict more immediate rather than merely theoretical.

Political reaction is intense, but the next phase is judicial

Trump and his allies condemned the ruling as election interference, while supporters of the challenges argue that Section 3 is a binding constitutional qualification no different in principle from age or citizenship requirements. Some Democrats also expressed discomfort with removing a leading candidate without a definitive U.S. Supreme Court ruling, underscoring that the dispute does not fall neatly along party lines.

The Washington Post reported that the Colorado and Maine actions have placed growing pressure on the Supreme Court to resolve whether Trump can be excluded nationally or whether states lack authority to make that determination on their own.

For now, Maine’s ruling does not settle Trump’s eligibility. It ensures that the question will move quickly into court while adding a second state to the emerging constitutional split. By the end of this week, the 2024 presidential campaign is no longer debating Section 3 as an academic possibility. Two states have now applied it directly to the leading Republican candidate, and the judiciary is being asked to decide what the Constitution requires before voters begin casting primary ballots in large numbers.