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New Hampshire shuts down gambit to block Trump from

primary ballot, snubs DNC election calendar
New Hampshire's secretary of state won’t block Donald Trump from ballot in the key presidential primary state; sets
early filing period in brewing battle with DNC
By Paul Steinhauser James Levinson
, Fox News

Published September 13, 2023 1:11pm EDT

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New Hampshire's secretary of state won’t block Donald Trump from ballot in the key presidential primary state
New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan shuts down the push by some Republicans in the crucial early voting presidential primary state to keep
Donald Trump off the ballot.

CONCORD, N.H. – The top election official in New Hampshire says he won't invoke the
14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in order to block former President Donald Trump
from the ballot in the state that holds the first primary in the Republican nominating
calendar.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan, at a news conference Wednesday at the
state house in Concord, also announced that the filing period for the 2024 presidential
primary will start on Oct. 11 — meaning it's nearly all but certain the date of the contest
will lead to a collision with the Democratic National Committee.

At the news conference, called in part to address legal efforts by some Republicans in
New Hampshire to prevent the former president from getting his name on the 2024 ballot,
Scanlan said that as long as Trump "submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it
under the penalties of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the
presidential primary ballot."

PUSH TO BLOCK TRUMP FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY BALLOT COLDY RECEIVED
BY GOP LEADERS

New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan announces that he won't move to block former President Donald Trump
from the presidential primary ballot, on Sept. 13, 2023 in Concord, N.H. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

"That language is not discretionary," Scanlan emphasized.

Bryant "Corky" Messner, an attorney and prominent Republican who won the 2020
Republican Senate nomination thanks in great part to Trump's support, was mulling a
lawsuit if Trump filed to put his name on the ballot.

Messner was very publicly questioning the former president's eligibility to run for the White
House, and cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That section
disqualifies those who’ve taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office
again if they’ve "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S. "or given aid or
comfort to the enemies thereof."

EFFORTS TO KEEP TRUMP OFF BALLOT IN 2024 MOUNT

Separate from Messner's move, John Anthony Castro — a Texas-based attorney who's
running an extreme long-shot bid for the GOP presidential nomination — filed a lawsuit in a
New Hampshire court that aimed to keep Trump off the primary ballot.

Ever since Trump launched his third straight White House bid last November, there's been
talk of invoking the 14th Amendment to keep him off the ballot. But with his recent
indictments in federal court and in Georgia on charges he attempted to overturn the
results of his 2020 election loss to President Biden, the push gained momentum.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on Tuesday Aug. 8, 2023, at
Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A legal advocacy group that had previously targeted Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor
Greene of Georgia and then-Rep. Madison Cawthorne of North Carolina over ballot
qualifications this summer sent letters to elections officials in nine states asking them to
keep Trump from the ballot. And some prominent legal scholars have advanced the
argument.

But Scanlan emphasized on Wednesday that "there is no mention in New Hampshire state
statute that a candidate in a New Hampshire presidential primary can be disqualified
using the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution referencing insurrection or
rebellion."

"There is nothing in the 14th Amendment that suggests that exercising the provisions of
that amendment should take place during the delegate selection process as held by the
different states," Scanlan added. "There is nothing in our state statute that gives the
Secretary of State discretion in entertaining qualification issues once a candidate swears
under the penalties of perjury that they meet the qualifications to be president."

Scanlan, a former Republican state lawmaker, also sought legal input from the New
Hampshire Attorney General's Office. And a concurring statement from state attorney
general John Formella highlighted that state law "does not afford the Secretary of State
discretion to withhold a candidate's name from the ballot on the grounds that the
candidate may be disqualified under Section Three when a candidate has not been
convicted or otherwise."

Most Secretaries of State have balked at the idea of striking a presidential candidate on
their own. Minnesota Secretary of State Scott Simon, a Democrat, said in a statement last
week that his office can’t take such action on its own and could only do so if compelled by
courts.

It'slikely the issue may eventually be resolved by U.S. Supreme Court, which in its storied
history has never made a ruling on the clause

The issue will likely only be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on
the clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Scanlan emphasized that "I think a decision on this requires a ruling from the United
States Supreme Court to do anything differently than what we have planned here."

New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager, who attended the news conference, told Fox News:
"I’m very happy with the decision. It made a lot of sense to me the way the Secretary
articulated the process and the decision-making, and now we can put the 14th
Amendment to bed in New Hampshire and get back to campaigning."

New Hampshire GOP Chair Chris Ager speaks with reporters at the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office, on Sept. 13,
2023 in Concord, N.H. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

"Ithink it’s the right thing to do," Ager added. "It gives clarity to what’s going to happen in
New Hampshire."

Scanlan also announced at his news conference that the filing period for presidential
candidates to sign up to put their name on the New Hampshire ballot will extend from Oct.
11 to Oct. 27. That's about three weeks earlier than four years ago during the 2020 cycle,
when the New Hampshire primary was held on Feb. 11.

NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATS DEFY BIDEN AND DNC OVER PRIMARY DATE

New Hampshire for a century has held the first primary in the race for the White House.
And while the Republican National Committee is not making any dramatic changes to their
nominating calendar, the DNC overwhelmingly voted in early February to dramatically alter
the top of its schedule for the 2024 election cycle, bumping Iowa and New Hampshire
from their longtime leadoff positions.

But months later, there's no resolution with New Hampshire or Iowa, and the party appears
far from implementing its revamped primary schedule.

The push by the DNC to upend its primary calendar — in order to better reflect Black and
Hispanic voters in the early primary contests — has been vigorously opposed in New
Hampshire.

Democrats for years have knocked both Iowa and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of
the party as a whole, for being largely White with few major urban areas. Nevada and
South Carolina, which in recent cycles have voted third and fourth on the calendar, are
much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina were
added to the Democratic calendar nearly two decades ago to increase the diversity of the
early states electorate.

President Joe Biden speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, in Philadelphia.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The DNC overwhelmingly approved a calendar proposed by President Biden to move

South Carolina to the lead position, with a Feb. 3, 2024, primary. New Hampshire and
Nevada are scheduled to hold primaries three days later, followed by Georgia on Feb. 13
and Michigan two weeks later. The president and supporters of the plan have argued that
it would empower minority voters, whom Democrats have long relied on but have at times

taken for granted.

New Hampshire has a nearly half-century-old law that mandates that it hold the first
presidential primary, a week ahead of any similar contest.

The DNC extended an earlier deadline until Sept. 1 for New Hampshire to come into
compliance or face getting booted from the early state window for the 2024 cycle.

To comply, New Hampshire needs to scrap its state law protecting its first-in-the-nation
primary status and must expand access to early voting. But with Republicans in control of
New Hampshire’s governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, state
Democrats have repeatedly argued that’s a non-starter.

A sign outside of the state capital building in Concord, New Hampshire spotlights the state's treasured position for the past
century in holding the lead-off presidential primary. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

"I'm just assuming we're going to be in noncompliance with the Democratic National
Committee," Scanlan told Fox News.

And pointing to a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on Thursday when New
Hampshire may be found non-compliant, Scanlan emphasized that "we'll see what comes
out of that. But that's not going to affect what we do in New Hampshire at all."

If New Hampshire is ruled non-compliant, the state could lose half of its delegates to next
summer's Democratic presidential nominating convention, under DNC penalties passed
last year.

There are plenty of Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who see the upending of their
leadoff positions as sour grapes from Biden, who finished a disappointing fourth in the
2020 Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary, before a second-place finish
in Nevada and a landslide victory in South Carolina propelled him towards the nomination
and eventually the White House.

Scanlan didn't set the date of the primary, just the filing period — but the dates of the filing
period are in line with a primary that could be held on Jan. 23, eight days after Iowa's GOP
presidential caucus.

Material from the AP was included in this report

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at
our Fox News Digital election hub .

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

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