‘Designed to terrorize’: Maine official who removed Trump from ballot describes recent threats

Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, says the threats she has faced since determining Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the presidential ballot in her state are an effort to scare her and others.

Related: Trump appeals ruling that would keep him off Maine 2024 primary ballot

Bellows, a first-term Democrat appointed to her position by the Maine legislature, had her home swatted after someone placed a hoax phone call claiming he had broken in. Justices on Colorado’s supreme court, which also removed Trump from the ballot last month, have faced death threats. Surveys have shown there are alarmingly high levels of support for political violence in the US.

“Even though the swatting incident at my home was a fake call, alleging an emergency at my home, it was designed to terrorize. It was designed to make me afraid and send a message not only to me but to others,” she told the Guardian in an interview.

“Of course I understood that there would be strong feelings and anger and opposition to my decision. I was prepared for all of that,” she said. “What I wasn’t prepared for was the abusive, aggressive and threatening communications, targeting not only me and also my family and those who work for me.”

Bellows was largely unknown outside Maine until last week when she became the first secretary of state to remove Trump from the ballot. She made that decision after three Maine voters filed a challenge under state law saying Trump was barred from running for president under section 3 of the 14th amendment.

Maine law requires her to hear the challenges, and she held an hours-long public hearing on 14 December in which both the challengers and Trump’s attorneys made their case.

Section 3 of the 14th amendment says anyone who has taken an oath to support the constitution as a member of Congress or officer of the United States and then engages in insurrection is ineligible to hold office. The provision has been largely untested since the US civil war, but various groups have filed challenges to Trump’s candidacy citing it.

“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a candidate of ballot access under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in an insurrection.”

Trump has since appealed the decision to the Maine superior court, saying Bellows relied on “untrustworthy evidence” and was biased against him. He is also appealing the Colorado decision to the US supreme court. Bellows served as a presidential elector for Joe Biden in 2020 and called January 6 an insurrection as early as 2021.

Bellows noted in her decision that she would be able to evaluate the issue without bias.

“My decision was based exclusively on the record of facts represented at the hearing, the legal arguments and the United States constitution,” she said. “That was my only and sole consideration because that’s the oath I swore to the constitution, is to uphold my duty under Maine’s election laws and to follow the law. And that’s what the law required.”