The Daily Fuckup

Six Colorado voters filed suit on Sept. 6, 2023, asking a state court to block Donald Trump from the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The complaint says Trump is disqualified because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and seeks an order preventing election officials from placing his name on the ballot.

The plaintiffs are four Republicans and two unaffiliated voters. They are represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Colorado-based lawyers. The filing turns a political claim into a constitutional question: whether Trump’s actions after the 2020 election meet the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause, which bars some former officeholders who have engaged in insurrection from holding office again.

The case was filed in Colorado state court and became part of a broader set of ballot-eligibility fights that would later move through the courts. At this stage, though, the lawsuit is about one concrete issue: whether Trump can appear on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot. The answer depends on how the court reads the amendment, the facts alleged in the complaint, and the evidence presented by the parties.

Trump’s critics say the filing is a direct application of the Constitution to his post-election conduct. His supporters are expected to argue that Section 3 does not apply to him, or that the facts do not establish disqualification. Whatever the outcome, the suit put a ballot-access challenge on the record in Colorado and set up an early test of a rarely used constitutional provision.