Waiting on Supreme Court, States Go It Alone in Trump Ballot Cases

When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January to hear an appeal of a Colorado ruling that disqualified former President Donald J. Trump from that state’s primary ballot, many thought the court would soon resolve the issue for the entire country.

That sense only grew after oral arguments in early February, when justices across the ideological spectrum appeared skeptical of the reasoning used to disqualify Mr. Trump.

But three weeks have passed, Mr. Trump has solidified his lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and, with Super Tuesday looming, there remains no nationally binding answer to questions that strike at the heart of American democracy: Did a major political party’s likely nominee participate in insurrection? If he did, does that disqualify him from running for president?

The uncertainty from the Supreme Court has left states to go it alone, with divergent results that have left some voters confused. On Wednesday in Illinois, a Democratic state judge disqualified Mr. Trump from the state’s primary ballot, a decision that she stayed until Friday to give Mr. Trump time to appeal. By Thursday morning, Republicans were calling the clerk’s office in McLean County, in central Illinois, unsure of what it all might mean for them. After all, early balloting in the March primary was already underway.

“They were mad — not terribly angry, but upset — with what was going on and they didn’t know what it meant,” said Kathy Michael, the county clerk, who is a Republican. “One had already early voted. One had voted by mail. And they asked, ‘The question now is, will my vote count?’”

Without federal guidance, the nation’s patchwork of rules and deadlines has left local judges and election officials to weigh complex constitutional issues. This week, the Indiana Election Commission voted 3 to 1 to reject a challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility, though one Democratic member said she believed that Mr. Trump had participated in insurrection and should be removed from the ballot.

“There has been no uniform decision made by our courts,” that Indiana commissioner, Karen Celestino-Horseman, said during a meeting on Tuesday. She added: “That is what is really resting with the United States Supreme Court. And as we are sitting here today, we do not have that direction.”

The ballot challenges, which have been filed in more than 30 states and have succeeded in three, focus on whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat disqualify him from holding the presidency again. The cases are based on a largely untested clause of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, that prohibits government officials who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

The challenges vary widely in legal strategy and sophistication, and many have been rejected or dismissed. In some places, including Maine and New York, judges have paused proceedings until after the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in. In other states, including Wisconsin and Wyoming, cases are winding slowly through the courts. But with several primary elections fast approaching, some states have charged ahead in considering the merits of the challenges.

The bipartisan Illinois State Board of Elections decided unanimously last month that it did not have the authority to disqualify Mr. Trump on 14th Amendment grounds. But an Illinois judge, Tracie R. Porter of the State Circuit Court in Cook County, which includes Chicago, ruled this week that the board had erred and said it “shall remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the general primary election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed.”

A spokesman for the Trump campaign said the Illinois ruling was unconstitutional and the workings of “an activist Democrat judge.” Mr. Trump appealed the case to the Illinois Appellate Court and asked to remain on the ballot past Friday while that appeal is considered.

If no higher court acts on Mr. Trump’s appeal before Friday, the legal landscape becomes even more uncertain. Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the Illinois board, said in an email on Thursday that, “because the judge stayed her order, nothing has changed regarding Donald Trump’s ballot status for now.” He declined to comment further.

Illinois leaders advised local officials that they would have two options if the disqualification order took effect, according to an email provided by a county clerk. The local officials could reprint ballots without Mr. Trump’s name on them. Or they could continue to provide ballots with his name, but those votes would be “suppressed and not reported with the election results.”

In Vermilion County, Ill., where Mr. Trump won nearly two-thirds of the vote in 2020, Keith Smith, 50, said he would not vote if Mr. Trump was excluded from the ballot.

“I just don’t think it’s fair,” said Mr. Smith, a pilot who usually selects a Republican primary ballot. “It’s him being discriminated against, really.”

Not everyone saw it that way. Jim Williams, who was among the few people casting a ballot on Thursday at an early voting site in Vermilion County, said he agreed with the disqualification and believed Mr. Trump had participated in an insurrection. Mr. Williams, 88, a retired Methodist pastor, said he disapproved of Mr. Trump and had chosen a Democratic primary ballot for the first time.

Mr. Trump is set to appear on primary ballots on Tuesday in Colorado and Maine despite having been found ineligible by the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of state, who is a Democrat. He has appealed those findings, and both decisions are on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court decides the Colorado matter.

Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is Michigan’s secretary of state, said the country needed finality from the Supreme Court, and that she was surprised it had taken this long for it to issue a ruling.

The “clock is ticking and people are voting,” Ms. Benson said, “so the time is now for the Supreme Court to issue its opinion, provide that clarity.”

Farrah Anderson contributed reporting from Danville, Ill.