Ohio Sen. Huffman says Biden ballot problem ‘is going to be resolved’
COLUMBUS — A top legislative Republican says that one way or another, President Joe Biden will appear on the ballot in Ohio, despite an obscure state law that threatens to block him over the scheduled date of this year’s Democratic National Convention.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, of Lima, said the specifics will depend on whether Democrats propose an administrative fix, via the rules of the national Democratic Party, or a legislative one. But he suggested he thinks even a lawsuit likely would be successful, in light of a unanimous March decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that restored ex-President Donald Trump to the ballot in Colorado and Maine.
“It’s going to get resolved,” Huffman said Wednesday while speaking with reporters at the Ohio Statehouse. “I don’t want to speak on behalf of the Democratic Party. I’m not a member. But we’re certainly going to try to accommodate any result.”
The issue over whether Biden may qualify for the ballot went public earlier this month, when Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, flagged a state law that says political parties must finalize their presidential candidates 90 days before the November election. The deadline falls on Aug. 7 this year, about two weeks before the Democratic National Convention.
Lawmakers previously have cooperated to pass one-time
Biden
extensions, first in 2012 and again in 2020, when the deadline has posed similar issues. But no obvious solution has appeared yet this time. Republicans have said they’re waiting for Democrats to act, while Ohio Democrats have said they’re waiting for direction from the national party.
Democrats last week proposed what they called a “provisional certification” — basically a letter attesting that Biden will be the Democratic presidential candidate, particularly given that he’s already won enough delegates to clinch his party’s nomination and faces no opponent. But LaRose and
Republican Attorney General Dave Yost rejected the proposal Monday, saying state law doesn’t allow for provisional certifications.
Yost, who is running for governor in 2026, reiterated his view Wednesday in a post on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter: “If Libertarians or the Green Party fail to qualify for the ballot, are they being denied their voting rights? Of course not! Same rules for everybody — including the Democrats.”
“I fully expect the Democratic Party will find a way to fix their inexcusable, careless error and get their candidate on the ballot — after all, they have months left to work it out. But, on my watch, they’re going to do it while following the law,”
Yost said.
But Huffman took a softer approach, something of a change after comments he made last week referring to the issue as a “Democratic problem” led some Democratic lawmakers to believe that he wasn’t willing to help.
“This has to get resolved,” Huffman said. “... For folks who said, ‘Well, we (Republicans) kicked Joe Biden off the ballot,’ I think that’s wrong. I think we’re not going to be able to look at the current president of the United States and a major political candidate and just say, ‘We got a law, you didn’t know about it. Ha ha.’”
Huffman said he thinks the answer could be as simple as the Democratic National Committee passing a resolution stating that Biden is the party’s nominee.
But he also said a lawsuit likely would be successful, particularly given the U.S. Supreme Court’s March decision to order two Democratic-controlled states, Colorado and Maine, to allow Trump on the ballot, after officials in those states barred the former president, citing a Civil-War era amendment to the U.S. Constitution which bars those who participated in an insurrection against the United States from holding federal office.
While its decision had to do with the insurrection clause, the court in its ruling more generally raised concerns that inconsistent rulings by states in a presidential election could undermine the integrity of a national election.