Ohio lawmakers urge adding Biden to November's presidential election

Ohio's governor is threatening to exclude President Joe Biden from the key battleground state's November presidential vote, pressuring the state legislature to avoid partisan conflict.

The state's top elections official said earlier this week that it was too late for Democrats to nominate a candidate to comply with Ohio's voting access law.

Such conflicts have been resolved quietly in the past, but Biden's team may be forced to sue to get on the ballot.

The governor said Thursday he would call an unusual special session of the Legislature to pass legislation that would allow Biden to appear on the ballot.

In Ohio, political parties are required to formally endorse their presidential and vice presidential candidates to the chief elections official at least 90 days before the general election.

That means Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris must be certified as the Democratic nominee by August 7.

Biden has secured enough votes to win the Democratic nomination, but he will not be officially nominated as the party's candidate until the nominating convention.

However, the Democratic National Convention will be held from August 19th to 22nd.

“It is clear that the August 7, 2024 certification deadline overlaps with the dates of our party's nominating convention,” Ohio Elections Commissioner Frank LaRose said in a letter to Ohio Democratic Party leaders on Tuesday.

“Unless your party intends to comply with the statutory deadline, I am obligated to instruct the Board of Elections to begin preparing ballots that do not include the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President of the United States,” the Republican said.

The Republican front-runner, former President Donald Trump, won't face the same problem: His party's national convention runs from July 15 to 18, well before Ohio's deadline.

Gov. Mike DeWine, a moderate Republican who has distanced himself from his party's Trump allies, said Thursday he would convene state lawmakers to fix the “absurd, absurd situation.”

“Ohio is running out of time to put the incumbent President of the United States, Joe Biden, on the ballot this fall,” he told reporters.

“To not do so is simply unacceptable.”

The Democratic and Republican conventions are typically held in the summer before a presidential election. Similar issues over certification deadlines have also been resolved with little fuss.

Earlier this year, Democrats in Washington state and Republicans in Alabama made the necessary temporary changes to exempt Biden from the voting deadline.

Ohio itself has taken similar measures in the past, with the state legislature making exceptions for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 and President Trump in 2020.

But the state's Republican House speaker said Congress has no intention of resolving the issue through legislation.

“There's just no will in the Legislature to do that,” House Speaker Jason Stevens told reporters on Tuesday.

The Biden team remains confident the issue will be resolved without drama.

“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,” campaign spokesman Charles Luttwak told US media.

“As the election has continued, states across the country have acted in accordance with bipartisan consensus and taken the necessary steps to ensure that presidential candidates from both parties appear on the ballot.”

But with no legislative remedies on the table from state Republican lawmakers, a sitting U.S. president may be forced to seek legal action.

Once considered a battleground state, Ohio has become increasingly conservative: Trump won it in both 2016 and 2020, defeating Hillary Clinton and Biden by about 8 percentage points both times.

The fight over Ohio's ballots follows another partisan standoff earlier this year that threatened to get Trump on the ballot.

Officials in Colorado, Illinois and Maine have ruled that the Republican presidential candidate will be barred from returning to the White House under the U.S. Constitution's Civil War-era insurrection clause.

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned that decision in March, ruling that Trump must appear on the presidential ballot in the three states.