AG Dave Yost holds off calling Biden winner
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has weighed in on the Pennsylvania election case in which Republicans and President Donald Trump are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a state court ruling permitting late-arriving mail ballots to be counted.
Yost, a Republican, said an important U.S. Constitution provision is at stake, although he said even if the late votes are disallowed, it likely will not make a difference in Democrat President-elect Joe Biden’s clinching win in Ohio’s neighbor to the east.
Legislatures “make the rules – not state supreme courts,” Yost said of his office’s friend-of-the-court brief filed on Monday in the case in which the Pennsylvania high court allowed ballots to be counted if they arrived within three days of the election.
“It’s a question that could arise again in future elections ... we think it is good for Republicans and Democrats and everybody to get an answer to,” Yost said.
Yost said he decided to file a separate brief to avoid joining other state filings that “talk about the dangers of mail balloting” and said any ballots arriving after Election Day should not be counted.
Mail balloting has worked well in Ohio and the state permits late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted for 10 following days. “I didn’t want to sign onto a brief that mail is bad,” Yost said.
Biden’s lead is large enough in Pennsylvania that not counting late ballots likely will not hurt him, the attorney general said, adding, “I don’t know that it will change the outcome” if the votes are discarded.
Asked if he considers Biden the president-elect and the electoral outcome determined, Yost said: “The electoral college meets on Dec. 12 and then we will have a president and I will accept the outcome of that process and so should everyone in Ohio.”
Yost considered Trump the candidate in 2016 to be unfit for office before later supporting the Republican nominated at the party convention in Cleveland.
Republican Gov. Mike Dewine congratulated Biden on Monday. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-ohio, had not commented on Biden’s victory in a statement or on Twitter as of mid-day Tuesday..
rludlow@dispatch.com