Election Board Says They Can Absolutely Kick Madison Cawthorn Off The Ballot

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In a court filing this week, a North Carolina election board argued that they absolutely have the authority to kick Madison Cawthorn off the ballot in the state, if it comes to that. The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed by Cawthorn to shut down the investigation into whether or not he should be kicked off the ballot for allegedly supporting the Capitol Riot. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's at stake and how this could play out.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

In a court filing this week, the North Carolina board of elections argued that they do in fact, have the authority to kick Republican representative Madison Cawthorn off of the ballot. Now this filing was in response to a basically preemptive lawsuit, if you want to call it that, that Cawthorn himself had filed against the state to prevent them from even looking into whether or not he could be kicked off the ballot for his alleged encouragement to the Capitol rioters and of course we have to say alleged because he has not been convicted of anything. So it is all alleged, that is the correct way to say that folks. But either way, this state board of elections is saying we as the state get to make these determinations, even if they are determinations about the 14th amendment, and here's just part of their filing. Let me read this.

The state does not judge the qualifications of the elected members of the US House of Representatives. It polices candidate qualifications prior to the elections. States have long enforced age and residency requirements without question and with very few, if any, legal challenges. The state has the same authority to police which candidates should or should not be disqualified per section three of the 14th amendment. And of course that is the section that basically says, if you have engaged in or supported an insurrection against the United States, you're out. And that of course is what liberal groups in North Carolina are alleging that Madison Cawthorn did. He did speak at the Stop the Steal rally the morning of January 6th. But does that act alone rise to the level of encouraging these people?

Certainly he has defended what took place that day. He did speak words of encouragement to them that morning. Did use, you know, some question rhetoric that could be construed as encouraging what happened that day. And then the other legal question that has to be answered by this state board of elections in making their determination, not just did he encourage it, but was it an insurrection? And see that's the big question mark. That's the one that everything hinges on because if they make the determination that, hey, you can't classify this as an insurrection, then the whole challenge is done anyway. It wouldn't matter if he supported it or didn't support it. If it's not an actual insurrection or at least attempted insurrection, none of it matters.

That could also, by the way, apply to anyone else who may have encouraged those individuals that day, that people might be trying to bar from holding office. Lauren Boebert is a good example of that as well. There's now talk about using the 14th amendment to possibly bar her from being on the ballot in Colorado this November, if she survives her primary race, because she does have some very popular Republican challengers there. Either way, it all comes down to that question. What you think about it, what I think about it, however we individually want to classify January 6th, that is irrelevant. All that matters is what the authorities decide to classify it as. And if they make the determination that it was as insurrection, the cases move forward. If they say that it wasn't, then it's all out the window and all of these people get to stay on the ballot.