Columbus, Ohio — Democratic President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is feuding with Republican-dominated state governments in Ohio and Alabama to ensure he is included on their fall ballots, as once-mundane procedural negotiations become entangled in the country’s fractious politics.
Both states, which together control 26 electoral votes, have deadlines for appearing on the ballot ahead of the Aug. 19-22 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Lawyers for Biden’s campaign have asked their secretaries of state to accept preliminary certifications before the cutoff date, which would then be updated once Biden is formally nominated.
That’s where things got sticky.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen told The Associated Press that he will not accept a provisional certification because he has no legal authority to do so. Allen said he sent a letter to the Alabama Democratic Party alerting them to the date issue as a warning so they could address the issue.
“I don’t deny anyone. I just tell them what the law is,” Allen said. “I took an oath to uphold Alabama law and that is what I am going to do.”
Randy Kelley, the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, accused Allen of “partisan gamesmanship,” pointing out that Alabama has made adjustments to accommodate late Republican conventions in the past.
Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, sent a similar letter to the Ohio Democratic Party last week. The letter suggested the party needed to reschedule its convention or get a legislative solution before May 9 in order to vote for Biden on November 5.
The idea of removing a presidential candidate from a ballot began last year with a legal campaign to remove former President Donald Trump from several state ballots by citing a rarely used clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would prevent those who “were involved in rebellion” bans from office. After Democratic-dominated states, including Colorado and Maine, did so, Republicans warned that they could respond by banning Biden from the ballot in red states if the Supreme Court did not overturn the actions.
That’s exactly what the Supreme Court did last month, ruling that individual states cannot bar a candidate from running for national office under the constitutional provision. But Alabama and Ohio have gone ahead anyway, citing technical conflicts between Biden’s official nomination and their own voting deadlines.
Biden’s campaign argues there is precedent in Alabama for accepting preliminary certification, even when Republicans faced the same problem in 2020. That year, the state accepted both a preliminary certification for Trump and legislation that included a one-time change to the deadline. Democratic lawyers argue that it was the preliminary certification, not the legislation, that allowed Trump to vote.
Regardless, Allen’s Republican predecessor as secretary of state, John Merrill, said Alabama had it worked out for Trump and that “absolutely the state should do the same” for Biden.
“Everyone deserves the opportunity to vote for the nominees of the major parties. That is why it is important that the state does whatever is necessary to ensure that everyone in the state is well represented,” he said.
Republicans also filed preliminary certifications for Trump in Montana, Oklahoma and Washington in 2020, as did Democrats for Biden in those three states. On Thursday, Washington state agreed to accept a preliminary certification that would allow Biden to meet the deadline before the convention. Oklahoma’s deadline also falls before this year’s convention, but a spokesperson said the law already anticipates such occasions by allowing preliminary certifications.
Since Ohio changed its certification deadline from 60 to 90 days before the general election, state lawmakers have had to adjust it twice — in 2012 and 2020 — to accommodate candidates from both parties. Any change was only temporary.
Two Democratic lawmakers in Alabama’s Republican-controlled Legislature introduced legislation Thursday to push back the state’s certification deadline, and it appears the party will also have to take the lead in Ohio’s Republican Party-led Statehouse.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, a Republican, told reporters this week that he has no plans to initiate a legislative solution in his state. He said it is up to minority Democrats, who control only seven of the House’s 33 seats.
“I think it is a democratic problem. There will have to be a democratic solution,” Huffman said. “That was not suggested to me.”
That could leave Biden’s fate in Ohio up to LaRose, whom Democrats sharply criticized throughout the spring as he entered a bitter U.S. Senate primary.
Democrats are weighing all their options. If pleas for preliminary certification or legislation both fail, they may consider a lawsuit or call part of their convention early to formalize Biden’s certification.
A Biden campaign attorney said the president is already the presumptive nominee and keeping him off the ballots will deprive voters of their constitutionally protected rights.
“President Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris will be the Democratic Party’s candidates for the 2024 presidential election,” Barry Ragsdale, an attorney who represented the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Convention, wrote in his Alabama letter. required number of pledged delegates through the primary state process. There is no ambiguity on this point.”
Some Republicans in both states support working with the Biden campaign to ensure he gets on the ballot.
Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, the chamber’s Republican leader, said, “My position would be to be accommodating, if we can, on an issue that is important to everyone across the board.”
Republican U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said he does not believe there is anything “evil” going on in his state and that he expects a solution will be made for Biden. Vance told The Boston Globe that he hopes Ohioans will support Trump and expects them to do so, as they did in 2016 and 2020.
“But the people of Ohio get to make that choice,” he said, “and not some weird voting error.”
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama. AP writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.