It is starting to appear that President Joe Biden may not make it onto the presidential ballot in a big battleground state.

Lawmakers in Ohio did not pass any proposals on Wednesday that would allow for the president to appear on the ballot this November.

The reason for the need to pass the legislation is that the Democrat National Convention, where President Biden will officially be named the nominee for his Party, is after the filing deadline to be on the Ohio ballot and there is no loophole in the state’s current law that would allow for an exception.

“The House and Senate floated separate proposals this week that would change the certification deadline to 74 days before the Nov. 5 election. Under current law, state officials must certify the ballot by Aug. 7 − 90 days beforehand − but Biden won’t be nominated until the Democratic National Convention 12 days later,” Dispatch reported.

“Wednesday ended with no plan to get the president and presumptive Democratic nominee on Ohio’s ballot. And the clock is running out: Secretary of State Frank LaRose said lawmakers had until Thursday to change the deadline. Bills typically take 90 days to become law unless they have an emergency clause attached to them,” the report said.

Advertisement

But Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has insisted that the president’s name will be on the ballot no matter what has to be done, be it legislation or the courts.

“I don’t want to minimize that this has to happen, but I do want to minimize anybody thinking that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that this isn’t going to happen,” he said on Wednesday. “The president’s name is going to be on the ballot.”

House Minority Leader Allison Russo said that she does not believe there will be a legislative solution, ut says that the Democrat Party still has options.

“We see once again that politicians and the politics and playing games with this piece of legislation ruled the day,” she said. “I think we’ve officially sunk lower than Alabama at this point.”

There was a bipartisan proposal that would have affected this, and future, elections as it would have allowed a Party to certify its nominee either 74 days prior to an election or three days after their convention, whichever would come first.

But Republicans proposed a one time fix that would have prevented foreign citizens or green card holders from donating to ballot campaigns, which killed the chances for Democrats to support it.

“We use the word compromise a lot,” Republican Senate President Matt Huffman said. “I think this is a reasonable result. There’s some things for both sides to like and dislike. It gets these two issues resolved for the upcoming election.”

Democrat Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio disagreed.

“There wasn’t something for us to love and hate,” she said. “It wasn’t a compromise. It was frankly a dirty trick and we didn’t take the bait.”

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has not wanted to budge on the deadline as he says Ohio law does not allow it.

“The facts are still very clear on this,” he said. “The Democrats scheduled their nominating convention too late to comply with Ohio law, and they’ve admitted that this unforced error creates a problem for their presidential candidate that needs to be fixed.”

In April, LaRose said the only way to fix it is for the Democrats to change their convention date or the Ohio State Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, to change the law to accommodate Democrats.

“I am left to conclude that the Democratic National Committee must either move up its nominating convention or the Ohio General Assembly must act by May 9, 2024 (90 days prior to a new law’s effective date) to create an exception to this statutory requirement,” Secretary of State’s spokesman Paul Disantis told the Party.

Advertisement