The Democratic National Convention, where the president would otherwise be formally nominated, comes after Ohio’s ballot deadline of Aug. 7. The party’s convention is scheduled for Aug. 19-22.
For over a decade, the DNC knew that Ohio had an early deadline for presidential candidates to get on the ballot. The DNC paid no attention to the deadline, so Biden wasn’t going to be on the ballot in Ohio unless someone did something to fix the problem.
Ohio lawmakers have moved the deadline in the past for candidates of both parties, although they had not done so yet for Biden this year and were called to a rare special session by Gov. Mike DeWine to address the issue.
Since the Republicans planned ahead, the Democrats owned this problem. Ohio Republicans, who are in the majority, wanted to get some legislation passed in exchange for saving Biden’s ass. They haven’t been able to make a deal so far, so Democrats solved their own problem. Good for them.
President Joe Biden will be formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee through a virtual roll call ahead of the party’s official convention in Chicago in August — a maneuver that will allow Biden to appear on the November ballot in Ohio.
That’s not shady, everyone knows that Biden will be the presidential nominee. The maneuver just stills the thunder from the official Democratic convention.
This part I love.
“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in Ohio and all 50 states, and Ohio Republicans agree. But when the time has come for action, they have failed to act every time, so Democrats will land this plane on our own,” Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman, said in a statement. “Through a virtual roll call, we will ensure that Republicans can’t chip away at our democracy through incompetence or partisan tricks and that Ohioans can exercise their right to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice.”
That is a statement from the person responsible for the problem. Republicans failed to act to save Democrats from themselves. So typical. To a Democrat, a long standing deadline is a partisan trick.
From a different article, this line is also great.
Liz Walters, the chairwoman of the Ohio Democratic Party criticized Republicans, saying they had “played politics with our democracy.”
Playing politics over legislation is literally their job. Walters hasn’t been able to strike a deal with Ohio Republicans to solve the DNC’s problem, so it’s obviously the Republicans fault.