Biden’s Ohio Ballot Access Comes Down To Partisan Politics

People assume the major party presidential nominees will appear on every state's November ballot. Why wouldn't they? The nominees aren't a secret, and the formal nomination conventions this summer are little more than afterthoughts.

But election law can be a tricky thing. Every state has a deadline for when those major party nominees must be made official to appear on that state's ballot. In Ohio, the deadline is 90 days before the general election  — Aug. 7 of this year. 

And there's a problem. A highly bureaucratic problem: the Democratic convention won't make Joe Biden's nomination all nice and official until two weeks later, on Aug. 19.

In a typical political environment where bureaucratic formalities are quickly adapted to fit real-world realities, this would not be a big deal. Ohio lawmakers would adjust the due date and return to their other work.

But these are not normal times, and our political class has become hopelessly mired in its own performative nonsense. For now, that means Joe Biden might not appear on the ballot in Ohio in November:

The Ohio House and Senate each had separate proposals to fix the deadline issue, but neither advanced when the legislature was last in session on May 8.

Speaker Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, told reporters Tuesday that the legislature has fixed the issue with convention dates in the past, and he thinks it could have been fixed, but there was just not the will from the legislature this time.

“Not the will from the legislature this time.”

That's rather incredible. Instead of fixing things as has happened in the past, the worthies refused to act because of…partisanship.

Blind, dumb, and destructive partisanship.

And it was embarrassing enough that Gov. Mike DeWine (R) called a special legislative session to address the issue:

“This is simply unacceptable,” DeWine said at a news conference. “Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States, on the ballot this fall. Failing to do so is simply not acceptable. This is a ridiculous — this is an absurd — situation.”

Just to put how absurd all this is into a broader context, consider the case of Alabama:

A similar issue also occurred in Alabama, but with little drama. State lawmakers passed a bill to move the deadline later, and Gov. Kay Ivey (R) quickly signed it into law.

That ought to be enough to shame just about everyone in Columbus. Or it would, were it not so easy, and even rewarding, to be a mindless partisan — first, last, and always.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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