We should not need to defeat Donald Trump on the 2024 presidential ballot, because Donald Trump should not qualify to even be on the ballot.

The 14th Amendment states that anyone who has taken an oath of office and then engaged in "insurrection" against the government of the United States is disqualified from ever holding office again.¹

And an "insurrection" is exactly what the violent attacks of January 6 were, orchestrated by Trump to stay in office against the will of the people, as the overwhelming evidence of the January 6 committee has demonstrated.

The decision to enforce the Constitution in this matter rests with the secretaries of state in each state—and that's why we need to call on them to follow the Constitution and ensure Trump is not above the law.

After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was ratified to address the white supremacy inherent in our founding documents and to make governing possible after the rupture of the Civil War. One piece of that was barring those who took up arms against the country from office, via the "disqualification clause" of Section 3.

Since being used to eject Confederates from Congress, the disqualification clause lay mostly dormant for over a century ... until Donald Trump's January 6 insurrection.

Since January 6, the disqualification clause has become relevant again. Earlier this year, a New Mexico judge removed County Commissioner Couy Griffin from office under the disqualification clause for his participation in the violence of January 6—the very same argument against Trump.² And several other courts have upheld the view that the disqualification clause can be applied to members of Congress or other people seeking office who participated on January 6.³

This legal precedent affirms what we all know is right: that Trump should not be allowed to run again when he was at the center of a violent and deadly criminal conspiracy to sabotage the 2020 election. Just as secretaries of state can bar someone from the ballot for failing to meet other qualifications, such as residency or age, they can and must do so for insurrection. Trump's refusal to stop seeking power forces the question, and it's up to us to make sure that election officials do their duty to keep him off the ballot.

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Want to support MoveOn's work? Donald Trump's preparations for being able to steal the presidency in 2024 are well underway and include working to replace top election officials in battleground states with his own loyalists. Which is why MoveOn is doing something we've never done in our 24-year history: We're launching a powerful, multimillion-dollar effort to defeat Trump-backed secretaries of state across the country and elect individuals who will count every vote and ensure fair elections.

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