Trump election: Michigan supreme court rejects ballot disqualification bid

Michigan’s supreme court has refused to hear an appeal by voters in the US state to disqualify Donald Trump from next year’s presidential primary.

They sought to invoke a clause in the US Constitution, barring anyone who has engaged in insurrection, over Mr Trump’s role in the 2021 Capitol riots.

Michigan is considered a battleground state in the 2024 general election.

Traditionally voting Democrat, it supported Mr Trump, a Republican, in his successful 2016 presidential campaign, but then reverted to current President Joe Biden in 2020.

Pro-democracy advocacy group Free Speech for People filed the lawsuit in September.

But unlike in Colorado, the bid failed early on in the process, and the appeal to the supreme court was seen as having little chance of success.

Courts in Michigan rejected the case on procedural grounds and did not examine the question of whether 6 January 2021 was an insurrection and whether Mr Trump played a part in it.

Supreme Court justice Elizabeth Welch explained that Michigan’s laws were different from Colorado’s.

The appellants “have identified no analogous provision in the Michigan Election Law that requires someone seeking the office of President of the United States to attest to their legal qualification to hold the office”, she wrote.

Colorado’s 4-3 supreme court decision last week, which refers only to the state primary on 5 March, does not stop Mr Trump from running in other states.

It is the first-ever use of Section 3 of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment to disqualify a presidential candidate. The measure was ratified after the American Civil War to block secessionists from returning to previous government roles once southern states rejoined the Union.

The Colorado decision has been put on hold pending an appeal in January. Similar attempts to kick Mr Trump off the ballot in New Hampshire and Minnesota have failed.