Ohio AG Shuts Down Democrat Proposal to Allow Biden on the Ballot

Tit for tat… that is how our political system works these days, and the GOP is out for revenge right now.

Democrats thought it was all fun and games when they were trying to have Donald Trump removed from the ballot.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the Dems are crying foul.

Denied

As it turns out, the Democrat National Convention where delegates will be assigned, formalizing the nomination of Joe Biden, is not scheduled until late August.

However, Ohio has a rule in place that does not allow a candidate to be on the ballot if they miss the state’s deadline, which is in early August.

This is just an idiotic oversight on the part of the party, but it is the same mistake the RNC made in 2020 when the Republican National Convention was scheduled after Alabama’s deadline.

This year, the convention is after two deadlines, which would be Alabama and Ohio.

Alabama is going to (or probably already did) pass a provision to allow Biden to remain on the ballot just as it did when the RNC screwed up in 2020.

Ohio, however, is a different matter altogether. It claims that there is no provision available by law that would allow Biden to be put on the state’s presidential ticket if he misses this deadline.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office stated, "The Democratic Party’s notion of providing a ‘provisional certification’ by the statutory deadline simply is not provided for by law.

"Instead, the law mandates the Democratic Party to actually certify its president and vice-president candidates on or before August 7, 2024. No alternative process is permitted.

"Thus, the Secretary of State lacks authority to accept ‘provisional certifications’ from the Democratic Party pursuant to [the law]. The Democratic Party must actually certify its presidential candidates on or before August 7, 2024 to be placed on the 2024 General Election ballot.”

So, this created a rather interesting situation in that Democrats now have to make the argument that the American people deserve a choice in voting.

Yet, Democrat states around the country were trying to have Donald Trump removed from their ballots.

Does this make the GOP hypocrites for blocking Biden? It sure makes Democrats hypocrites for the current argument they are making.

Now, as tempting as it may be to have Biden removed from the ballot, if I were running the show, I would allow the provision and put him on the ballot, but then I would create some ads showing the attacks against Donald Trump and how far they took removing Trump versus the GOP going out of its way to accommodate Dems in this election to ensure Ohioans had a choice.

I could be wrong, but rather than playing tit-for-tat politics, this could sway some moderate voters in other states because right now, even if Biden is on the ballot, he has little chance of beating Trump in Ohio.