Minnesota Democrats Attempting To Remove Donald Trump From State Ballot
Not long ago, we reported that Donald Trump was not appearing on the ballot in Minnesota. The Minnesota GOP scrambled to correct this error, but in their rush to fix the problem, they may have made a mistake. Now Politico reports that Democrats have now claimed that since Trump’s name has been improperly submitted, it must be taken off of Minnesota ballots.
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin filed a legal petition with the state Supreme Court looking to remove Trump from the ballot.
“The Minnesota GOP did not elect to elect alternate presidential electors at the state convention earlier this year. After being notified that they had failed to provide the names of alternative electors by the Secretary of State’s office, Republicans decided to appoint alternate electors in a closed-door meeting rather than electing them. This is violation of state law,” the Minnesota DFL’s statement reads.
Furthermore, it appears that by the Minnesota GOP’s own rules, that this was not a move their constitution allows, as pointed out by a former party official.
However, Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy Minnesota Republican Party chairman, pointed out on Twitter that the Minnesota GOP’s rules don’t allow for such a fix, as the DFL’s suit also argues.
“Last night #MNGOP ‘appointed’ alternate electors to fix problem – BUT this isn’t allowed in #MNGOP constitution – so we have a mess,” Brodkorb tweeted.
Whether this will succeed or not remains to be seen, but in an election filled with cheap shots, this might be considered one of the cheapest. Still, rules are rules, especially if they are rules the GOP set themselves.
Interestingly, if Trump is taken off the ballot, he’ll have less states at his disposal than Libertarian Gary Johnson, who is now appearing on ballots across all 50 states.
