SEATTLE (Washington): The challenge by a group of voters to remove former president Donald Trump from the Washington presidential primary ballot will shift this week to an Olympia, Washington courtroom after a Kitsap County judge on Tuesday said the issue should be decided where the state capitol is located, reported German news agency (dpa).
The group of eight voters had filed the challenge to Trump’s eligibility in both Kitsap County — where they all live — and Thurston County.
Given Thurston County’s “unique position as the seat of our state government”, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Bassett said from the bench, “I do not believe Kitsap is the appropriate venue for this case today.”
A hearing is now scheduled for 8.30 am Thursday in Thurston County Superior Court.
In anticipation of a full hearing Tuesday, the small Port Orchard courtroom was filled to capacity, largely with Trump supporters.
Trump faces ballot challenges in at least 35 states. In two states, Colorado and Maine, officials have ordered the former president removed from the ballot for his role in the Jan 6 attack on the US Capitol and for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The ultimate resolution to all the ballot challenges may be decided by the US Supreme Court, which already has agreed to hear a challenge to the Colorado case.
Procedures are different in each state although in every case, challengers allege that Trump is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which bars anyone who has served as “an officer of the United States” from holding “any office... under the United States” if they have “engaged in insurrection”.
Challengers allege that Trump’s actions, leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol, constitute an insurrection.
Frankey Ithaka, the lead petitioner in the effort to remove Trump from the ballot, said they filed motions in both Kitsap County and Thurston County because they were unsure which was the proper venue.
A middle school teacher, Ithaka was driving to work and listening to a radio interview with Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, about Washington’s procedures for removing someone from the ballot, when a light bulb went off.
“Washington has this law that allows us to come forward and contest,“ Ithaka said after Tuesday’s brief hearing. “If not us, then who?”
Trump’s actions were ruled an insurrection by the Colorado Supreme Court, Ithaka said, which prompted the action here.
“If we are not a nation that adheres to the Constitution, then we have nothing to stand on,“ Ithaka said. “And the Constitution is clear in plain text, that if you engage in an insurrection, you cannot be president, you cannot run for president, you cannot hold public office again.”
Ithaka and seven other Kitsap County residents filed their motion in a tight two-day window after the primary ballots had been finalised, but before a statutory deadline for ballot challenges.
They were severely outnumbered in court Tuesday, by a crowd, including people carrying signs and sporting Trump paraphernalia.
Joe Scott, of Poulsbo, learned about the hearing from a group he’s a member of, Puget Sound Patriots.
“We had heard there was a possibility a judge could say ‘take Trump off the ballot’,“ Scott said. “That’s a no go as far as I’m concerned, especially when you’re taking arguably a person who has half the vote of the nation off the ballot.”
Mary Lou Long, of Bremerton, wearing an American flag scarf and a Trump 2024 hat, said she was determined to be in court Tuesday morning “to represent freedom for people to vote for the person of their choice and fight a Marxist-style tactic to remove any opposition from the ballot”.
Washington’s presidential primary is March 12, but ballots must be printed and mailed to voters weeks ahead of time.
Republicans slated to appear on the ballot are Trump, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Christie and Ramaswamy have dropped out of the race.
For Democrats, President Joe Biden will appear on the ballot alongside two longshot rivals: the self-help author Marianne Williamson and US Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota.
The filing to remove Trump argues he “engaged in an insurrection” when “he and his supporters, without evidence, attempted to overthrow the election of Joseph Biden through violence”.
“He has continued to aid and abet those who engaged in violence to overturn the election on Jan 6, 2021, through his words and financial support,“ the petition says, arguing that his behaviour “disqualifies him from holding public office” under the 14th Amendment.
A court order setting the hearing called for the Washington secretary of state, the Kitsap County auditor and “any interested parties” to speak to the “error alleged” in including Trump on the ballot.
A representative of the state Republican Party was in court, prepared to speak, if Bassett had decided to hear the substance of the case.–Bernama-dpa
