- Former President Donald Trump has appealed to the US Supreme Court after being excluded from the Colorado state primary.
- This was announced by a lawyer for the far leading Republican presidential candidate on Wednesday.
- An opinion from the Supreme Court in Washington was not initially available.
Trump was expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. With the move, he wants to overturn a decision by the highest court in Colorado in December, according to which he was disqualified from the primary election in the state in 2021 because of his role in the storming of the Capitol.
Formal objection also in Maine
The top elections supervisor in the state of Maine recently made a similar decision. On Tuesday it became known that Trump’s lawyers in Maine had lodged an objection to his exclusion from the primaries there.
The background to the dispute is the unprecedented attack on the US parliament building almost exactly three years ago: Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Congress met there to formally confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump had previously incited his supporters during a speech with unsubstantiated claims that the election victory had been stolen from him through massive fraud. As a result of the riots, five people died. Trump faces charges of attempted election fraud for his actions surrounding the vote.
States decide whether to participate in the election
How the Supreme Court might decide is unclear. The court is dominated by a conservative majority; three of the nine justices were appointed by Trump. It could also theoretically dismiss the question. However, legal experts expect the Supreme Court to take up the matter in order to avoid legal chaos in the election year.
In the USA, the primaries and the actual presidential election take place at the state level according to their respective laws and regulations. Therefore, they decide who is allowed to take part and how the voting takes place.