The presence of Donald Trump on the ballots for the United States presidential elections on November 5 was in the air for months in several states due to accusations of having participated in an insurrection. The Supreme Court paved the way for the former president to run for president. Now it is the current president, Joe Biden, who runs the risk of being left off the ballot in the State of Ohio for a more trivial issue: a matter of deadlines.
It was the Secretary of State of Ohio, Republican Frank LaRose, responsible for compliance with electoral legislation, who made the warning public. “Today, the Democratic Party presidential candidate [Joe Biden] will not be in the Ohio elections. It’s not my choice. It is due to a conflict in the law created by the party, and the party has not offered any legally acceptable remedy so far,” he published in a message in which he attached a letter addressed to the president of the Democratic Party in Ohio.
The problem is that Ohio law establishes that parties must certify which candidate they have proclaimed at least 90 days before the November 5 election date. That deadline is August 7, but the Democratic convention is held in Chicago from August 19 to 22. It is at that convention that candidates for Joe Biden for the presidency and Kamala Harris for the vice presidency are expected to be officially chosen. The Republicans have no problems because their convention is in Milwaukee from July 15 to 18, within the established deadline.
Normally, in situations of this type, state parliaments quickly approve a legal modification that avoids leaving one of the candidates of the major parties off the ballot. This same month, the Alabama House of Representatives, under Republican control, unanimously approved a legal modification to reduce from 82 to 74 days the period prior to the elections that the candidate must be designated in order to appear on the ballots.
Ohio is a State of almost 12 million inhabitants. For many years it was considered a purple State (a mixture of Democratic blue and Republican red) that served as a national reference and in which the candidate who won in the country as a whole usually won. However, he has clearly opted for the Republican side. In the 2020 elections, despite Biden’s victory in the United States as a whole, Trump won in Ohio by a difference of eight points. He achieved 3.15 million votes (53.2%) compared to 2.68 million (45.2%) for the current president. He has 17 votes in the Electoral College of the delegates who elect president and in which 270 votes are needed to win. Whoever wins in the State takes the 17 votes.
The state legislature was processing a rule to delay the certification deadline and allow Biden to run for office, but Republicans inserted into the rule a provision to veto foreign donations for state electoral initiatives, something that Democrats reject. Republicans believe it was funding from outside Ohio that allowed a constitutional amendment to establish abortion rights to be approved in a referendum last year. Given this conflict, the processing of electoral reform has stalled and the president of the Ohio House of Representatives has told the media this week that in the end there will be no legislative solution.
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“Let me be clear that this is not an action I wish to take, as I believe it is in the best interest of Ohio voters to be able to choose between at least the two major party candidates for the nation’s highest political office. But unfortunately, the Ohio House of Representatives has refused to act, and the Democratic Party has so far offered no legally acceptable remedy,” LaRose says in the letter to Democrats.
According to the Secretary of State, the Democratic Party’s offer to submit a provisional certification within the legal deadline “is simply not provided for by law” and there is no provision in the Ohio Election Code that would allow the Democratic Party to be provided with an alternative process to the required by law. “The integrity of our elections begins with our citizens having full faith and trust that their chief electoral official will always follow the law,” he adds, asking the chair of the Ohio Democratic Party to make a move: “My office is seeking a remedy that respect the law and serve the interests of the voters of our State. “I trust that you will act quickly to resolve this dispute so that we can move forward clearly in preparation for the November general election.”
Democrats are not considering changing the date of the convention. They have the possibility of launching a legal process to demand Biden’s presence on the ballots or looking for some intermediate formula to overcome the obstacle. Making an official proclamation of the candidate prior to the convention would be unprecedented
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