COLUMBUS, Ohio — A top legislative Republican said Wednesday 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 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 parties nomination and faces no opponent. But LaRose and Republican Attorney General Dave Yost rejected the proposal on Monday, saying that state law doesn’t allow for provisional certifications.
Yost, who is running for governor in 2026, reiterated his view on 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.
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But Huffman took a softer approach on Wednesday, 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.
“I think it’s likely that a state law — whether it’s this one —or state action like [in] Colorado or Maine that will keep a candidate of a major political party off the ballot, then ultimately a federal court — maybe even the United States Supreme Court — would move in and do something about that,” Huffman said.
Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance also has said he doesn’t want the Ohio ballot issue to prevent voters from getting a choice in the presidential election.
“I would encourage all of my fellow citizens in the state of Ohio to not vote for Joe Biden. And again, I don’t think that they will, I think Trump will probably win, maybe by double digits. But the people of Ohio get to make that choice, not weird ballot quirks,” Vance told a Boston Globe reporter recently on Capitol Hill.
More on the Ohio law
Ohio used to give political parties until 75 days before an election to finalize their presidential nominees. The deadline exists in general to allow elections officials enough time to finalize ballots and make other needed preparations.
But in 2010, Democratic and Republican state lawmakers unanimously voted to change the deadline to 90 days before an election as part of a broader bill that implemented changes to allow for military members to vote early.
The bill required that that the state mail military ballots 45 days before an election, in accordance with a federal deadline, while tweaking numerous other election-related deadlines, including the presidential candidate deadline. Lawmakers at the time did not discuss the reason for the 90-day deadline during floor sessions where they approved the bill, according to videos recorded by the Ohio Channel, and instead focused on other aspects of the bill that would affect military members.
But the law quickly created problems. Ahead of the 2012 election, then-Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican who now is lieutenant governor, noticed the law conflicted with the dates of both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, which both were scheduled that year to fall after the deadline.
Lawmakers that June unanimously approved a one-time fix that temporarily moved the deadline from 90 days before the election to 60 days, tacking it to an unrelated, uncontroversial bill.
In the Senate, LaRose, who at the time was a state senator, introduced the amendment containing the deadline switch. Huffman, who at the time was a House member serving in Republican leadership, formally introduced the Senate version on the House floor.
Then-Rep. Terry Blair, a Republican, thanked Husted for noticing the problem the new 60-day deadline posed, which he called “a quirk in the law.” The fix, he said, would ensure that Ohioans were able to vote in that year’s presidential election.
“We ought, as a House and as a state, say thanks Secretary of State Jon Husted for recognizing this ... enabling us, the State of Ohio and the citizens to vote in the election for president of the United States,” Blair said.
The state legislature granted a similar one-time extension to the Democratic and Republican parties in 2020.
What other states do
Ohio’s law is one of the earliest deadlines for presidential candidates in the country, according to a chart of state ballot access laws published by the National Association of Secretaries of State, a bipartisan trade association representing state elections officials.
Most state deadlines fall in September, with some going into October. Some states, like Illinois, Michigan and Texas, set their deadlines relative to the political party convention dates, and not the election itself.
Early state deadlines include Alabama, which requires parties to certify presidential candidates 81 days before an election, and Washington, which sets the deadline on the third Tuesday in August.
Oklahoma, like Ohio, sets the deadline at 90 days before the election. But state law there also allows for parties to submit provisional, or placeholder, candidate certifications, according to an official in the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s Office.
Washington meanwhile in 2020 granted provisional certifications to the Republican and Democratic parties, and did so again for Democrats in 2024, said Derrick Nunnally, a spokesperson for the Washington Secretary of State’s Office. A provisional certification involved party officials writing a letter attesting who their nominees would be, even though the convention hadn’t yet happened to make it official.
In Alabama, Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, has taken a similar approach to LaRose, saying the state law there prevents Biden from qualifying due to the date of the Democratic National Convention. But Alabama state lawmakers on Wednesday voted to advance bills to make sure that Biden qualifies, favorably referring them to the full legislature for a final vote. Republican lawmakers there called it an issue of fairness, according to the Associated Press.
Andrew Tobias covers state politics and government for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer
Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.