President Joe Biden might not appear on the November 2024 presidential ballot in Ohio. Ohio law requires that presidential candidates be certified – that is, the state must be notified that presidential candidates have been officially nominated – 90 days before the general election in order to get on the ballot. That is the earliest deadline of any state.

But the Democratic National Convention that will formally nominate Biden won’t open until nearly two weeks after Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline. The Republican National Convention will wrap up nearly three weeks before the deadline, so Donald Trump won’t have a problem getting on the ballot.

The 90-day deadline has often caused trouble since its adoption in 2010. Only in 2016 did both parties’ conventions take place before the Ohio cutoff date. Both conventions took place after the deadline in 2012 and 2020, and legislators extended the deadline both times. This is the first time that only one convention comes too late, but Republicans could well be affected in the future.

There are ways to resolve this problem, as two other states with early deadlines have already done. Washington state officials said they will accept a provisional certification of Biden’s nomination before the convention. And Alabama’s Legislature shortened its deadline so that Biden could qualify for the ballot there.

Neither solution seems likely in Ohio, where Republicans may be seeking to make life harder for the Democrats’ presidential nominee. The attorney general says the state can’t accept a provisional certification. And the Legislature couldn’t come up with a timely fix to the law.

Ohio laws generally take effect 90 days after passage. So a change to the deadline had to pass by May 9, but the Legislature wound up doing nothing. Here’s how that played out.

Divided GOP controls Statehouse

Republicans have supermajorities in both houses of the Ohio Legislature, yet they couldn’t agree on how to proceed.

The Ohio Senate passed a bill, but only after adding what Democrats viewed as a poison pill that would have banned foreign nationals from contributing to campaigns for or against ballot measures. Republicans objected to a Swiss national’s rumored contributions to a successful campaign last year in which voters approved a reproductive-rights amendment to the state constitution.

The House had planned to consider a different proposal but never voted on anything before leaving town on May 8 for two weeks.

This reflects the Ohio GOP’s bitter divisions. The House speaker won his position with support from only a minority of his caucus. The Senate president will switch to the House next year because of term limits and has hinted he will challenge the speaker.

The Legislature could still pass an emergency law to change the deadline, but emergency laws require a two-thirds vote in both houses. The chances of that happening are uncertain at best.

So, Democrats might have to file a lawsuit to get Biden on the ballot.

What’s the precedent?

As a constitutional law scholar, I believe Democrats would have a strong argument that using an arbitrary and unusually long deadline to bar a major-party presidential candidate violates voting and associational rights under the First and 14th amendments. But success is not guaranteed.

Such a lawsuit would rely on two U.S. Supreme Court cases that rejected state efforts to bar presidential candidates from the ballot.

A 1983 decision struck down Ohio’s old law that required independent candidates to qualify more than six months before the election. And a March 2024 ruling rejected Colorado’s effort to exclude former President Donald Trump from its primary ballot.

Those cases may be helpful in making the Democrats’ case, but they don’t dictate a win. The 1983 decision overturned a law that treated independent presidential candidates much less favorably than party candidates. Ohio’s 90-day deadline treats all candidates the same.

And the Colorado case involved the state’s unilateral determination that Trump was ineligible for office as an insurrectionist under the 14th Amendment. Ohio’s 90-day rule says nothing about whether a candidate is constitutionally disqualified.

‘Nobody seems to know why’

Those differences might not matter. Even if they do, a lawsuit still could win.

Ohio’s 90-day deadline is not only arbitrary, I believe that it is irrational. Nobody seems to know why the state extended the deadline from 60 to 90 days in 2010. The change came in an obscure provision of a 341-page bill.

The 90-day deadline has been a problem in almost every presidential election since then. The Legislature waived the deadline in 2012 and 2020, when both parties’ conventions fell after the cutoff date, and those elections ran smoothly. So the state can’t justify sticking with the 90-day rule this year when only one party is holding its convention after the deadline.

Biden probably won’t carry Ohio in any event. But having both major-party candidates on the ballot is necessary for a fair presidential election.

Everyone involved keeps saying that Biden will appear on the November ballot. But, at least for now, the law says otherwise.

Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency has issued an Air Quality Advisory for multiple Northeast Ohio Counties.

The following counties will be under this advisory through Monday:

• Ashtabula County
• Cuyahoga County
• Geauga County
• Lake County
• Lorain County
• Medina County
• Portage County
• Summit County

NOACA said the air quality levels in the affected counties are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
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From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about our Unreasonable Expectations. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our Unreasonable Expectations here.

Everybody knows that one of the best parts of being a sports fan is debating and dissecting the most (and least) important questions in the sporting world with your friends. So, we’re bringing that to the pages of LGHL with our favorite head-to-head column: You’re Nuts.

In You’re Nuts, two LGHL staff members will take differing sides of one question and argue their opinions passionately. Then, in the end, it’s up to you to determine who’s right and who’s nuts.

Today’s Question: What Is Your Most Unreasonable Unreasonable Expectation for the Ohio State Football Season?

Jami’s Take: Will Howard will be a Heisman finalist

Will Howard saw a lot of playing time at Kansas State, and as Ohio State’s starting quarterback job is still very much up for grabs, there’s been a lot of talk about whether he can actually fill that role for the Buckeyes now that he’s transferred.

And while we probably shouldn’t throw out the tapes from Kansas State altogether, I also don’t think they’re indicative of his potential as a Buckeye. In fact, I don’t think we have any idea what he’s capable of yet.

So my first expectation for this season (a not-at-all unreasonable one), is that Howard will be the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback.

My second expectation — a far more unreasonable one — is that he will be a Heisman finalist (I know that’s pretty unhinged even for me. I’m leaning in, though).

In large part, a quarterback is only as good as the players around them, including the offensive line and the receivers. And with no disrespect to Kansas State (ranked 18th in the final 2023 AP Poll), Howard certainly didn’t have players of the same caliber around him in Kansas as he will in Columbus.

At Kansas State, he was surrounded largely by some very talented three-star players. There is nothing wrong with being a three-star player! You’re batting above average, you’re definitely better than me! I am not knocking three-star players! But in Columbus, that rating largely bumps up to four or five stars.

Not only does this mean he will be set up for more success (both in terms of the quality of receivers he needs to connect with and in terms of how much time he’ll have to throw the ball), but there’s also a strong possibility that playing with better players will force him to elevate his own game. The guys around him will make him look good, yes, but they will also make him better.

Even if, by some mystery, he plays exactly the same, we know the Heisman committee loves a quarterback, and we’ve seen finalists in recent years who weren’t even the strongest guys on their OWN offense, let alone in the country. But because the other guys on their offense were so strong, their job at quarterback looked easy. And making it look easy is very convincing to the Heisman committee.

It’s deceptive, but it happens often.

And this year, with better weapons and a higher bar, I believe Howard will have a breakthrough season that puts him in the same ballpark as Quinn Ewers at Texas (currently the preseason favorite to win the Heisman) or Carson Beck at Georgia. With receivers like Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate, plus an offensive line powered by guys like Donovan Jackson, expect Howard to surprise everyone.

He doesn’t have to be the best player in the country to be a Heisman finalist. He just has to be one of the best, and with the right people around him, I believe he has what it takes to nurse the Buckeyes’ wounds from last season and make an impression with the Heisman powers-that-be.

Matt’s Take: Ohio State will have the Big Ten’s Offensive, Defensive, Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, Defensive Lineman, Defensive Back, and Coach of the Year

Look, the idea for this prompt was to go way overboard, like even more overboard than normal, so I did just that. The Ohio State football program has had some dominant runs when it comes to Big Ten awards, but that was the old Big Ten when it was just a 14-team league and the Buckeyes were really the only serious team in the conference.

Now, we are coming off three straight seasons of That Team Up North winning the league title and the Corn and Blue are now the defending national champions (sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit). Not only has OSU been dethroned as the league’s only dominant team, but the Powers That Be have added four West Coast-based teams with loads of football prowess and pedigree of their own. This fall, Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington will be Big Ten members, meaning that Ohio State will have to contend with even more competition for the conference crown as well as post-season awards.

However, in my most unreasonable of unreasonable expectations, I do think that Ryan Day’s squad can walk away with both the Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, as well as the quarterback, running back, wide receiver, defensive lineman, and defensive back awards. And, in what might be the most unreasonable expectation of all, that Day himself will win the B1G Coach of the Year honor… outright! Day shared the award with Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck in 2019, but before that, a Buckeye coach hadn’t won the award since Earl Bruce in 1979.

Obviously, if Jami’s Will Howard prediction comes true, I will take him as the B1G QB of the year, but the beauty of this unreasonable expectation is that on all of the others, I have options. Like with the Ameche-Dayne Running Back of the Year, that could legitimately be either TreVeyon Henderson or Quinshon Judkins. The Richter–Howard Receiver of the Year could be Emeka Egbuka, Carnell Tate, or even Jeremiah Smith; Smith–Brown Defensive Lineman of the Year… J.T. Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer, Tyleik Williams; Tatum–Woodson Defensive Back of the Year… Denzel Bruke, Caleb Downs, Lathan Ransom.

I know that the voters like to spread these awards around, but with how stacked this roster is, I could see it being a case where they have no other choice than to just give all of the awards to the boys in scarlet and gray.

Let us know who you are agreeing with: