Ohio Governor Takes Action to Ensure Biden Gets On Ballot

(ReliableNews.org) – The 2024 presidential election is less than six months away. Americans are set to cast their ballots in a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. There’s a problem for the incumbent in Ohio.

The Ohio General Assembly adjourned recently without solving a ballot issue that was keeping Biden’s name from appearing. On May 23, Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced he was calling a special legislative session to ensure the president isn’t left off the ballot in the important swing state. At a news conference, the Republican governor said it was “simply unacceptable” that the legislators had not solved the issue.

The whole saga is the result of the Democratic National Convention being held from August 19-22. That is beyond the state’s August 7 deadline for the state’s certification. A similar problem came up in Alabama, but lawmakers in the deep red state simply passed a law to move their deadline and the Republican governor signed it. That wasn’t the case in Ohio.

Democrats suggested a “provisional” ballot certification, pointing out the GOP had done it for presidential candidates from their own party in the past. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose refused to do so, he reached out to the state Democratic Party chair, Elizabeth Walters, and told her to either comply with the deadline or he would tell “boards of elections to begin preparing ballots that do not include” Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Instead of moving their deadline, Republican lawmakers refused to fix the problem. Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R) told the press, “There’s just not the will to do that from the legislature.” Minority Leader Allison Russo (D) blamed it on “partisanship and hyper-partisanship.”

DeWine made it clear that he was not impressed with the dysfunction in his state over the issue. At the press conference, the governor said the state was “running out of time to get […] the sitting president of the United States” on Ohio’s ballot. He called it “ridiculous” and “absurd.”