A major oversight by the Democratic Party may leave President Joe Biden off the November ticket in Ohio.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office on Friday informed the Ohio Democratic Party that the Democratic National Convention is currently scheduled too late to qualify for the state, according to ABC News.
The Buckeye State has a deadline of Aug. 7 to confirm a presidential candidate on the ballot, 12 days before the beginning of the Aug. 19-22 convention that is set to take place in Chicago and nominate the party’s candidate.
The Republican National Convention is scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee, well before the Ohio deadline. Former President Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee.
“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,” legal counsel Paul Disantis wrote in the letter obtained by ABC.
The party has confirmed it’s received the letter and are currently reviewing it.
When contacted by ABC, a representative for the Biden campaign stated, “We’re monitoring the situation in Ohio and we’re confident that Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states.”
Strange as it might seem, this isn’t the first time Ohio’s law has come into play in presidential nominations, according to The Washington Post.
In 2020, both parties were scheduled after Ohio’s deadline, the Post reported Sunday, citing University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven.
Will Biden be dropped from Ohio ballots?
“Knowing this, state lawmakers made a one-time change to reduce the deadline from 90 days before the election to 60, Niven said,” the Post reported.
No solution for the Democrats is likely to be easy.
Moving up the date of the convention would undoubtedly create complications for the party — though ensuring Biden is on the ballot should be the top priority.
Alternatively, Ohio’s legislature passing any measure to move back the deadline could be complicated considering the heavy majority that Republicans have in the state Senate and House of Representatives.
Additionally, the state’s governor is Republican Mike DeWine.
The president will want to appear on every possible ballot as the race appears to be extremely tight at the moment.
According to the website FiveThirtyEight, which compiles polls over the 2024 general election, nearly every poll is within a few points.
The narrow margins forecast an extremely tight race for the nation.
Niven told the Post he expects Trump to win Ohio in November, as he did in 2016 and 2020. But if Biden isn’t even on the ballot, he said, it could hurt depress Democratic turnout, hurting the party’s candidates in House and Senate races.
Nonetheless, for now, Biden is on course to not qualify in Ohio.
There’s an immense irony that while Democratic states such as Colorado have attempted to force former President Donald Trump off the ballot through shoddily created arguments — arguments rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court — Biden could be prevented from being on the ballot by an oversight by his own party.
They have nobody to blame but themselves.
