'Not up to the voters': Watergate prosecutor dispels 'myth' over Trump ballot eligibility

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Akerman — who was also one of the Department of Justice's assistant special prosecutors during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s — recently took both Democrats and Republicans to task for spreading what he called a "myth" about the role voters play in determining the constitutional eligibility of political candidates.

In an op-ed for the UK-based Independent, Akerman wrote that "majority voter approval is not a fundamental precept in the Constitution" when deciding a candidate's qualifications.

"From its inception, the Constitution established specific non-negotiable qualifications for eligibility to serve as president," Akerman wrote.

"A president elected twice is prohibited by the 22nd Amendment from being elected for a third term. It is not up to the voters to decide whether any president can serve a third term. The myth that the voters have unfettered selection of the president is of course upended by the Constitution’s electoral college voting system that allows a minority of the country’s voters to select the president."

The former Watergate prosecutor made his argument in response to blowback from both sides of the aisle following decisions by both the Colorado supreme court and Maine Secretary of state Shenna Belloiws (D) to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot in their respective states. Both the Colorado and Maine decisions deemed Trump not qualified to hold the office of president of the United States based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution — the so-called insurrection clause — due to his role in the deadly January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

Akerman said that both California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley (R) were both incorrect in how they asserted voters alone have the right to say whether a candidate is eligible to hold office. Newsom, for his part, stated that "in California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction." Haley said she would "beat [Trump] fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions."

"This is the politically expedient position for politicians bent on convincing voters they are not trying to eliminate their opponent for what some may view as a 'mere technicality,'" Akerman wrote. "These prerequisites to hold the office of the presidency are not technicalities. They are strict mandates created by voters’ duly elected representatives through a constitutional process, that must be followed before the voters make their choice."

Akerman argued the Supreme Court of the United States' (SCOTUS) was necessary to enforce the Constitution's eligibility requirements, writing that it "would go a long way to gaining voter acceptance to the fact that our Constitutional rule of law mandates that the 14th Amendment applies to Mr Trump making him ineligible to serve again as president."

READ MORE: Former federal prosecutor: Maine sec'y of state's disqualification of Trump 'a profile in courage'