Springfield, Illinois - Voters in Illinois and Massachusetts have picked up the fight to keep ex-President Donald Trump off their respective states' presidential ballots this year.

Five Illinois residents on Thursday filed a petition with the state's election board, asking it to bar Trump from running in both the 2024 primary and national elections.

In collaboration with the advocacy group Free Speech For People, which describes itself as "a national non-profit non-partisan organization," they cited the now-familiar "insurrection clause" in the Constitution's 14th Amendment to argue Trump should be disqualified from running for office again.

The same challenge was brought in Massachusetts, according to CNN, who reported that former Boston Mayor Kim Janey, and "a mix of Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters" were said to have joined the effort.

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Similar legal attempts have mushroomed all over the country, with mixed results. In Michigan and Minnesota, judges have already ruled against keeping Trump off the ballot.

But the battle is heating up in Maine and particularly Colorado, where the state's highest court declared the 77-year-old ineligible to appear on primary ballots due to his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

Trump has appealed the Colorado decision at the US Supreme Court, and is also challenging Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' move to strike him from the state's primaries.