BREAKING: Ohio Lawmakers Miss Deadline To Get Biden On The Ballot In November

On Thursday, Ohio lawmakers failed to pass legislation to push back the certification deadline for presidential candidates to appear on the ballot as President Biden risks not appearing on the ballot given that the Democrat National Convention takes place after the Buckeye State's certification date.

Ohio's ballot certification deadline is August 7, 12 days before the DNC convention on August 19 in Chicago. Both the state House and the state Senate forwarded separate legislation to fix the issue. However, they could not come to an agreement after the upper chamber attempted to attach a ban on foreigners and green card holders from donating to ballot campaigns. 

"We use the word compromise a lot," Senate President Matt Huffman (R) said, per The Columbus Dispatch. "I think this is a reasonable result. There's some things for both sides to like and dislike. It gets these two issues resolved for the upcoming election." Given the inclusion of the ban on foreign donations to ballot initiatives, Ohio Democrats rejected the bill and the legislature was unable to fix the certification issue by the deadline imposed by Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R-OH). 

"The facts are still very clear on this," LaRose said about the legislation. "The Democrats scheduled their nominating convention too late to comply with Ohio law, and they've admitted that this unforced error creates a problem for their presidential candidate that needs to be fixed."

LaRose wasn't the only one who voiced his concern about not having one of the major party candidates on the ballot. Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) guaranteed that Biden's name would appear on the ballot, saying, "I don't want to minimize that this has to happen, but I do want to minimize anybody thinking that there's a snowball's chance in hell that this isn't going to happen. The president's name is going to be on the ballot." 

Given the late date of the Democrat National Convention, two other states, Alabama and Washington, have also had to consider changing their certification deadline. Alabama was able to achieve this last week and Washington is expected to the do the same.

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