Fact check: Kamala being crowned as Democrat candidate with zero votes. Or Trump being removed from ballets. true or false

Executive Summary — Short Answer, Clear Findings

Kamala Harris was reported to have become the leading Democratic candidate through party processes without competing in statewide primaries and therefore recorded no primary votes in that procedural path, while Donald Trump has faced widespread legal efforts to remove him from ballots but the Supreme Court ruled states cannot unilaterally bar him under the 14th Amendment; both claims contain elements of truth and important context. Reporting in July–August 2024 described the Democratic Party’s virtual nomination path for Harris after President Biden’s withdrawal and noted that she had not accumulated primary votes through a conventional, competitive primary calendar (July 2024, August 2024) ^{[1] [2] [3]}. At the same time, legal challenges to Trump’s ballot status were numerous, but a March 4, 2024 Supreme Court decision clarified that states lack authority to remove a presidential candidate under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, placing enforcement with Congress ^{[4] [5] [6]}.

1. How Kamala’s “zero votes” headline came to be — party mechanics, not voter rejection

The reporting that Kamala Harris was “crowned” with zero primary votes reflects the mechanics of the Democratic Party’s mid-2024 decision-making rather than an assertion that voters rejected her. In July 2024, coverage explained that after President Biden withdrew and endorsed Harris, she became the only candidate to proceed through the DNC’s virtual process and amassed the necessary delegate commitments without competing in the normal primary electorate process; as a result she had no conventional primary vote totals tied to a contested, multi-candidate calendar ^[1]. Commentators criticized this as undemocratic since party leaders and a virtual roll-call rather than a full competitive primary determined the outcome, a point explored in August analysis that argued the process undermined expectations of a voter-driven primary system ^[2]. Other outlets emphasized that until delegates formally cast votes in the roll call, she remained a candidate and not the official nominee ^[3].

2. Why “zero votes” is misleading without context — delegates, endorsement, and procedure

Stating simply that Harris has “zero votes” omits the different ways parties choose nominees and the distinction between primary ballots and delegate selection. The DNC’s virtual selection and the consolidation of institutional support after Biden’s withdrawal produced delegate commitments that can make a candidate effectively unopposed, and therefore no competitive primary tally exists for that path ^[1]. News coverage from late July 2024 stressed that the formal nomination required a roll-call and that party elites’ endorsement materially changed the shape of the contest, making the “zero votes” framing factually accurate in raw vote counts but incomplete in describing how party nominations are decided ^[3]. Critics framed this as a democratic deficit, urging transparency about the tradeoffs between expediency and inclusiveness in nominating processes ^[2].

3. The Trump ballot-removal fights — many lawsuits, one high court limit

A broad wave of lawsuits sought to disqualify Donald Trump from state ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, with dozens of actions filed in multiple states challenging his eligibility; mapping in early 2024 showed litigation in many jurisdictions and vigorous debate about enforcement ^{[7] [8]}. However, a March 4, 2024 Supreme Court ruling decisively limited state power in this arena, holding that states cannot unilaterally remove a federal candidate under the Insurrection Clause and that Congress holds exclusive enforcement authority, a unanimous per curiam disposition that curtailed state-level efforts ^{[4] [5] [6]}. Fact-checking around Election Day 2024 continued to debunk various false claims about ballot counting and removal, reinforcing that while legal challenges were real and widespread, they did not culminate in states independently barring Trump from ballots nationwide ^[9].

4. Competing narratives and clear takeaways — legal fact vs. political framing

Supporters of each narrative emphasize different facts: critics of the Democratic process highlight the absence of a competitive primary and name undemocratic selection as the problem, while defenders point to party rules and the expediency of consolidating around a single candidate after a major withdrawal ^{[2] [1] [3]}. On the Trump side, challengers argued that constitutional disqualification was warranted, but the Supreme Court’s March 2024 decision shifted the battlefield to Congress and federal legislation, undercutting state courts’ remedies and reframing the constitutional question as institutional rather than judicial ^{[4] [6]}. Fact-checkers documented false or exaggerated claims about both nominees’ statuses during the 2024 cycle, underscoring the importance of distinguishing legal rulings from political talking points ^[9].

5. What readers should remember — precise language matters and context changes meaning

Saying Harris was “crowned with zero votes” is factually accurate in a narrow sense about primary vote totals, but it obscures the delegate processes, endorsements, and pending formal roll call that make nomination lawfully valid within party rules ^{[1] [3]}. Saying Trump was “removed from ballots” is false as a general statement given the Supreme Court’s March 4, 2024 ruling that states cannot remove him under Section 3, though litigation was extensive and unresolved in some forums until that decision clarified the legal landscape ^{[4] [5] [7]}. Both claims become misleading when stripped of procedural and legal context; the accurate story combines party mechanics, endorsements, delegate procedures, and a Supreme Court limit on state authority ^{[2] [6] [9]}.