President Biden may not be on the ballot in Ohio, and it isn’t easy to find unbiased reporting on this significant issue.
TL: DR: In Ohio, there is a law that presidential nominees must be submitted 90 days before the election to be on the ballot. Democrats screwed up, so Biden won’t be on the ballot unless something is done really soon. Ohio Republicans have to pass a waiver today, or the Ohio Democrats will have to figure this out on their own.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and Joe Biden all have appeared on Ohio’s November ballots despite their parties nominating them after an obscure deadline in state law.
An obscure law is still a law. Most news articles present our state law as ‘obscure’ or ‘a glitch’. It isn’t. The law has come up for every recent presidential election and been resolved in some public manner.
Ohio law says that a major party presidential candidate, in order to qualify for the ballot, must be nominated at their respective party’s conventions no later than 90 days before the general election, a date that falls in early August each year.
The 90 day deadline has been on the books since 2009, so this isn’t some shady last-minute law that was smuggled through the legislature to tip the scales for partisan benefit. Voters get 90 days to know who will be running for president. That isn’t crazy.
On April 5th, the Ohio Secretary of State sent a letter to the Ohio Democratic Party reminding them of this provision. The spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State explains,
“Ultimately, both political parties have well-paid attorneys who are capable of advising them on the legal requirements for ballot access,” Kindel stated. “Each party sets their own bylaws, organizes a national convention, and establishes rules for certifying candidates to the ballot. Our office is not involved in that process.”
That sounds reasonable. There is no obligation to remind each party of the requirements. Chris Redfern, a prior Ohio Democratic Party chairman said that when this came up in the past, the Ohio legislature passed an emergency measure.
“It was a challenge the Republicans also had, and it was a much different time. This was before Donald Trump. So we all could band together and pass a fix, and that was that,” Redfern said.
The law was never repealed or amended, and this time, it is only the Democratic Party with a problem.
“LaRose could pass a rule, but he’s playing dirty. And Republican legislators won’t cross the street unless Donald Trump tells them to,” Redfern said.
It isn’t clear how the Ohio Secretary of State is ‘playing dirty’ by enforcing a long-standing law.
David Niven, a University of Cincinnati political science professor and former speechwriter for ex-Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, said he thinks the issue will ultimately be resolved not by state lawmakers, but by national Democrats by setting up a “mini-convention” held virtually before Aug. 7 to certify Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee for Ohio’s purposes.
“I just don’t think they can tolerate of this situation at all,” Niven said of Democrats. “(A mini-convention) is the one concrete thing the party could do to ensure that this is not an electoral disaster on their hands.”
That sounds fine. Everyone says that Joe Biden is the presidential candidate, so make it official with a mini-convention. That isn’t even shady, just expedient.
More recent articles, like this one, make it sound like this is a bipartisan problem. It’s not. The Democrats were asleep at the wheel. Ohio Republicans are under no obligation to pass a waiver to get Biden on the ballot. Given how Trump has and is being treated, they’d be nuts to budge. If they do pass a waiver, Republicans are going to pack it with whatever other policies they want.
But because laws passed without an emergency clause don’t take effect for 90 days, lawmakers inadvertently gave themselves a deadline of May 9 to get the measure signed, sealed and delivered.
Since law can’t go into effect for 90 days, Biden gets a waiver today, or the Democratic Party has to figure out this problem on their own.