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The Maine official who moved to disqualify former President Trump from the state’s 2024 Republican major poll final week has beforehand mentioned that voter ID legal guidelines 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 legal guidelines that may require voters to point out picture identification to forged a poll.
“Passing these payments would imply placing into statute discriminatory practices rooted in White supremacy,” Bellows mentioned throughout her testimony. “At the moment, voter ID legal guidelines are the brand new technique of voter suppression.”
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Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald by way of Getty Pictures)
“These payments wouldn’t solely negatively impression folks of coloration but in addition the aged, transient, folks with disabilities, college students and low-income communities. With a purpose to make our democracy as consultant as attainable, we can’t enact practices that may shut out sure members of society,” she added.
Bellows’ opposition to the proposed legal guidelines, which didn’t cross, got here as Democrats in quite a few states opposed largely Republican-led efforts to cross legal guidelines geared toward making certain election integrity within 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 within the state Senate for roughly 4 years and has served because the secretary of state since 2021, beforehand referred to the Electoral School 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 A lot as Our Personal,” she touted her efforts to make “voting extra accessible” and mentioned she sought the place of secretary of state as a result of she “was really frightened for our democracy” after the 2020 presidential election.
She took intention on the Electoral School in her column, calling it “the relic of white supremacy” that stops voters from being represented pretty.
In her ruling to disqualify Trump from the state’s 2024 poll, Bellows cited Part 3 of the 14th Modification of the U.S. Structure that bars individuals who have “engaged in rebel” 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 legal guidelines are “rooted in White supremacy.” (Joe Phelan/Portland Press Herald by way of Getty Pictures)
The clause was initially meant to bar former Accomplice troopers and officers from holding positions within 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 major poll, a call challenged by the Colorado GOP, organising a battle earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket.
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Fox Information Digital has reached out to Bellows’ workplace for remark.
Maine Democrat who barred Trump from poll claimed voter ID legal guidelines have been ‘rooted in White supremacy’
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