Ohio Legislature Now Unlikely to Ease Deadline for Qualified Parties to Certify Their Presidential Nominees

Posted on by May 9, 2024

On May 8, the Ohio legislature made no headway with any bill to ease the deadline for qualified parties to certify the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees. See this story. The Senate Republicans want to pair the idea with a separate idea regarding campaign finance. But the House is uninterested in that. UPDATE: a bill could still pass and take effect in time if it has an emergency clause, but that takes a two-thirds vote in each house. The House has adjourned and will not reconvene until May 22.

It now seems likely that the Democratic Party will sue Ohio over its early August certification deadline. The proposed lawsuit is extremely likely to win. Early deadlines for candidates have been struck down in 30 states. Challenges to early deadlines are governing by the balancing test set forth in Anderson v Celebrezze, the 1983 U.S.Supreme Court decision that struck down Ohio’s deadline for independent presidential candidate petitions. Courts are instructed to weigh the harm to the state if the deadline is struck down, versus the harm done to voters if the deadline is upheld. In this case, it is obvious that there is no harm to Ohio if the deadline is struck down. No other state has such an early deadline. On the other hand, the harm done to voters if the deadline were upheld would be immense.

And if that weren’t enough, the U.S. Supreme Court decision Trump v Anderson, the unanimous decision that came down earlier this year, says the relationship between the president and the entire body of the U.S. public is so important, presidential elections cannot be limited by state laws that create a “patchwork”, in which presidential candidates are on the ballot in some states but not all of them.

Comments

Ohio Legislature Now Unlikely to Ease Deadline for Qualified Parties to Certify Their Presidential Nominees — 40 Comments

  1. I’d like to clarify something. Some commenters have brought up that an August deadline is not early. I think they are confused. There are deadlines for different things. RFK Jr sued Utah over its January deadline for an independent presidential candidate to file signatures for ballot access. That’s not the same as what’s going on in Ohio now.

  3. https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-renew-push-exclude-noncitizens-150544713.html

    Republicans renew push to exclude noncitizens from the census that helps determine political power
    MIKE SCHNEIDER
    Updated Wed, May 8, 2024 at 6:38 PM EDT

    Some Republicans in Congress are pushing to require a citizenship question on the questionnaire for the once-a-decade census and exclude people who aren’t citizens from the count that helps determines political power in the United States.

    The GOP-led House on Wednesday passed a bill which would eliminate noncitizens from the tally gathered during a census and used to decide how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state gets.

    The bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, the White House opposes it and there are legal questions because the Constitution says all people should be counted during the apportionment process.
    ———
    COMMIE/FASCIST STATES WOULD GAIN/LOSE HOW MANY USA REPS/EC VOTES ???

  4. August petition deadlines for independent candidates have been struck down (for being too early) in Alaska and Rhode Island.

  6. WILL OH ROT GO TO OTHER STATES ???

    IE COMMIE/FASCIST ONE PARTY REGIMES ONLY HAVE BALLOT ACCESS.

  10. VE DAY IN EUROPE 8 MAY 1945 –

    REMAINING TOP NAZIS ARRESTED IN LATE MAY 1945

    THIRD REICH WIPED OUT.

    OLDE WEST GERMANY REGIME IN 1949.

    4TH REICH IN TYRANT TRUMP DRAFT DODGER BRAIN ???

  11. Members of Congress, House and Senate, legislate for the entire country yet states have a “patchwork” of laws restricting voters choices to elect national legislators. Isn’t that special?

  12. Again I say:
    Early deadlines do not harm voters but protect them from bait-and-switch. It guarantees sufficient time for voters to research the candidates and for the candidates to slip up and let their true colors shine through. I have yet to see anyone give a single argument, let a lone a compelling one, for how early deadlines are supposed to harm voters.
    As for the patchwork argument, it is clearly nonsense: the whole point of the United States, as implied by the name, is that it is a federal republic, i.e. a united federation of states which each maintain a large degree of autonomy, the bare minimum of which should include the autonomy to set their own deadlines for the certification of presidential nominees.

  14. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/08/dana-nessel-charges-lawyer-stefanie-lambert-former-adams-township-clerk-for-mishandling-voter-data/73621114007/

    Nessel charges lawyer, former clerk for mishandling voter data
    Craig Mauger
    The Detroit News

    Lansing — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced a new round of criminal charges Wednesday against lawyer Stefanie Lambert, alleging Lambert, who’s worked to advance dubious election fraud claims nationally, and former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott allowed someone to access non-public voter information.
    —
    ELECTION STUFF – NOW A NATIONAL SECURITY MATTER — LIKE WAR PLANS / CODES ???

  23. Ohio Dems should just file the form naming Biden and Harris by the deadline anyway. It’s not like there’s any dispute over who they intend to nominate. Nothing except party’s own internal rules, which they’d obviously waive or change here, prevents the OH Democratic Party from nominating its own ticket, including if they want nominating the same ticket, just earlier.

  25. @DFR and Nuña

    The patchwork argument only applies to the presidential election because that is the only election where states have to work together to choose a winner.

    Early deadlines harm voters in at least two ways. First, they can reduce the number of days a candidate or party is allowed to collect signatures. The second reason has to do with blocking independent and minor candidates from filing after the major party primaries.

    Candidates will show their true colors by the end of a 2-hour long interview. An early deadline is not necessary.

  26. @Adam Cerini
    States having different certification deadlines does not prevent the general elections, because the general elections don’t move.

    Neither of those two things you mention actually hurt voters, they exclusively hurt incompetent parties and incompetent candidates who don’t have their affairs in order on time, and who then turn around and pretend it hurts voters simply because they feel like they are above the law.

    It took Trump more than three years to show his true colors (or at least just how deep his colors ran – he was already sucking up to the log cabin before then). If it were actually about protecting the voter from harm, then we would require the certification of nominees within the first year of the preceding presidential term. But it isn’t, it’s about evil megalomaniacs with an illusion of grandeur.

  30. The Ohio legislature is based, like Ann Coulter! She straight up told Vivek to his brown face she would not vote for him for the sole reason that he is a subcontinental, and yes, she knew it was a public, recorded broadcast. Courageous!

  32. Counting noncitizens in the census is ridiculous. So is counting nonwhites,but that’s a battle for a later time.

  33. Ballot deadlines only matter because we have state printed ballots. In the period before state printed ballots became common, parties could nominate candidates right up until election day, and would print their own ballots with the names of their candidates on them, and present them to the voters on their way to vote.

    This is why write-ins must be allowed. The voter retains the right to vote for whomever he pleases right up until the time he enters the voting place.

    Caveat elector – Let the voter beware.

  34. Even the Romans allowed “write-ins” In a Roman election, the voter would be given a clay tablet upon which he would mark the initials of his candidate, and then deposit his clay “ballot” into the receptacle for the ballots.

  36. COMMIES VS FASCISTS IN HOW MANY STATES –

    READY FOR CIVIL WAR II — MULTI-SECESSIONS ???

    OHIO ON LIST OR WHAT ???
    —-
    NOOO WRITE-INS = 14-2 AMDT VIOLATION

  37. @Walter Ziobro
    “The voter retains the right to vote for whomever he pleases right up until the time he enters the voting place.”

    But not really. I am free to write-in whoever but my vote won’t be counted, in most states not even for the purpose of keeping records or statistics, unless it is a recognized write-in candidate. In the case of Ohio, write-in candidates need to not only register with the Secretary of State, but also file a list of a whopping eighteen electors:
    https://www.ohiosos.gov/globalassets/publications/election/2020presidentialguide.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A50%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C70%2C720%2C0%5D

  39. I would absolutely love Biden failing to get on the Ohio primary. That would be the funniest thing, ever.

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