Ohio's Republican governor shuts down GOP's attempt to keep Biden off the ballot

Republican state officials in Ohio were threatening to exclude President Joe Biden from the ballot in the November 2024 election — but the state's governor is stepping in to put a stop to that.

According to Cleveland.com, "Gov. Mike DeWine has taken the rare step of calling a special legislative session, in effect summoning the General Assembly to make sure that President Joe Biden qualifies for the ballot this November. DeWine announced in a Thursday evening press conference that he would be calling the special session for Tuesday May 28. It marked the first time a governor has called a special session for 20 years. Otherwise, the legislature wasn’t scheduled to meet again until June 12."

At issue was an obscure provision of Ohio state law, adopted in 2010, that requires the state to be notified of the presidential candidates 90 days before the general election, which this year would be August 7. The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place about two weeks after that deadline.

ALSO READ: What Trump's weird WWE Hall of Fame speech tells us about his presidential debate strategy

This deadline, however, has rarely been enforced. In 2020, both the Republican and Democratic conventions were after the deadline, for example, and both were allowed to appear on the ballot. This time, however, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose publicly warned the Biden campaign they could be excluded from the ballot if they didn't meet the deadline.

Notably, all of this comes after the attempt to exclude President Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado and Maine for violating the Insurrection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Supreme Court shot down.

If not for the special session, there might still have been ways that the Democratic Party could have ensured Biden remained on the ballot, including holding a smaller, virtual convention earlier in which the delegates were "officially" counted, then holding the main convention as scheduled with Biden having been pre-nominated.