When the Supreme Court overturned a Colorado court ruling last month that had disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state ballot, the justices argued that it was necessary to avoid a “patchwork” of requirements for presidential candidates to meet. That would only invite “chaos,” they warned.
“An evolving electoral map could dramatically change the behavior of voters, parties, and States across the country, in different ways and at different times,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion in Trump v. Anderson. “The disruption would be all the more acute—and could nullify the votes of millions and change the election result—if Section 3 enforcement were attempted after the nation has voted.”
If that rationale was enough to justify writing Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment out of the Constitution, then one can only imagine how the justices will react to the latest shenanigans by red states. At least two states with Republican leaders—Alabama and Ohio—are now threatening to remove President Joe Biden from the November ballot.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office sent a letter to the state Democratic Party to warn that Biden could be excluded from the ballot based on the timing of the Democratic National Convention, which is currently scheduled for August 19–22. That puts it a few weeks later than the state’s August 7 deadline to certify a major-party presidential candidate. (The Republican National Convention is scheduled for late July.)
“I am left to conclude that the Democratic National Committee must either move up its nominating convention or the Ohio General Assembly must act by May 9, 2024 (90 days prior to a new law’s effective date) to create an exception to this statutory requirement,” LaRose’s office told the state party in the letter.
A few days later, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Moore sent a similar letter to Democrats warning that Biden could be ineligible for that state’s ballot based on a similar deadline. “If this office has not received a valid certificate of nomination from the Democratic Party following its convention by the statutory deadline, I will be unable to certify the names of the Democratic Party’s candidates for president and vice president for ballot preparation for the 2024 general election,” he warned.
It would be one thing if Biden and the Democrats were missing a deadline through ineptitude or error. That does not appear to be the case here. A more likely explanation is that some Republican-led states are following through on the implicit threat they made in Anderson—to remove some presidential candidates for bogus reasons for partisan gain—even though the justices caved to avoid precisely t
…. to be continued
>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : New Republic – https://newrepublic.com/article/180674/ohio-alabama-biden-convention-ballots