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The Maine official who moved to disqualify former President Trump from the state’s 2024 Republican main ballot final week has beforehand mentioned that voter ID laws are “rooted in White supremacy.”
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows made the declare whereas giving testimony to the legislature in April 2021, expressing her opposition to proposed state laws that will require voters to indicate picture identification to forged a ballot.
“Passing these bills would mean putting into statute discriminatory practices rooted in White supremacy,” Bellows mentioned throughout her testimony. “Today, voter ID laws are the new means of voter suppression.”
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Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald by way of Getty Images)
“These bills would not only negatively impact people of color but also the elderly, transient, people with disabilities, students and low-income communities. In order to make our democracy as representative as possible, we cannot enact practices that would shut out certain members of society,” she added.
Bellows’ opposition to the proposed laws, which didn’t move, got here as Democrats in quite a lot of states opposed largely Republican-led efforts to move laws geared toward guaranteeing election integrity in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, most notably in Georgia, the place some dubbed an identical invoice “Jim Crow 2.0.”
It additionally surfaced final week that Bellows, who represented Maine’s 14th District in the state Senate for roughly 4 years and has served because the secretary of state since 2021, beforehand referred to the Electoral College as a “relic of white supremacy.”
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Shortly after taking workplace, Bellows penned an op-ed for a progressive platform often known as the Democracy Docket. In her piece titled “Voting Rights for Our Neighbors Matter As Much as Our Own,” she touted her efforts to make “voting more accessible” and mentioned she sought the place of secretary of state as a result of she “was truly frightened for our democracy” after the 2020 presidential election.
She took goal on the Electoral College in her column, calling it “the relic of white supremacy” that forestalls voters from being represented pretty.
In her ruling to disqualify Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, Bellows cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that bars folks who have “engaged in insurrection” from operating for elected workplace with out two-thirds congressional approval.
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Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has beforehand mentioned voter ID laws are “rooted in White supremacy.” (Joe Phelan/Portland Press Herald by way of Getty Images)
The clause was initially meant to bar former Confederate troopers and officers from holding positions in the U.S. authorities or army.
It was additionally referenced by Colorado’s highest court docket in a 4-3 ruling final month to bar Trump from that state’s main ballot, a call challenged by the Colorado GOP, organising a battle earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Bellows’ workplace for remark.
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