The heat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is taking for disqualifying Donald Trump from the ballot is unjustified.

According to Maine law, Bellows is responsible for ascertaining whether candidates have the qualifications needed for their offices. Trump meets the constitutional requirements that presidents be at least 35 years old and native-born, but not the 14th Amendment’s requirement that officials not have engaged in insurrection against the Constitution after having previously taken an oath to uphold it, due to his involvement in the scheme to block the counting of electoral votes which the Constitution mandates.

Rep. Jared Golden says Trump should be disqualified only if a court convicts him of insurrection, but that is not the language of the 14th Amendment. It does not say that candidates are disqualified by being convicted of insurrection; it says they are disqualified by having engaged in insurrection.

The latter is unquestionable: Trump clearly tried to circumvent the constitutional process and deny the American people their votes.

This makes the argument that the voters should decide Trump’s qualifications in the November election quite strange, since the scheme shows Trump doesn’t respect the voice of the people. But more importantly, determining candidates’ qualifications is, by law, the job of state officials who oversee elections. We do not ask voters to decide whether a candidate is over 35 or native-born.

Qualifications must be determined before the election takes place. Shenna Bellows did the job with which Maine law charged her, and followed precisely the language of the 14th Amendment.

Jonathan Cohen, Farmington