(Headline USA) Alabama lawmakers advanced legislation Wednesday to ensure President Joe Biden will appear on the state’s November ballot.
The Republican-led legislature’s accommodations mirrored those made four years ago for then-President Donald Trump, although the changing political landscape due to Democrats’ reckless brinksmanship in waging a series of lawfare attacks on Trump had threatened to bring partisan allegiances into the mix.
After three states attempted earlier this year to block Trump from the ballot over baseless allegations of “insurrection,” many speculated that red states might respond in kind by blocking Biden.
Meanwhile, Democrats’ late convention has fueled speculation that the Democratic National Committee might attempt to pull off a Biden bait-and-switch by swapping the unpopular leader with another candidate at the last minute, with little opportunity for voters to thoroughly vet the alternative.
The issue of Biden’s ballot access has arisen in Alabama and Ohio as Republican secretaries of state warned that certification deadlines fall before the DNC convention is set to begin on Aug. 19.
The Biden campaign has asked the two states to accept provisional certification, arguing that has been done in past elections. However, the Republican election chiefs have said they don’t have the authority to do so arbitrarily, and must enforce the deadlines without additional legislative action.
Ohio became the first state to disclose that the DNC would violate state law requiring certification at least 90 days before an election, and thus far the GOP-led Buckeye State has yet to offer an alternative to keeping the Democrat nominee off the ballot if the law is not followed.
Democrat-run Washington state has agreed to allow the DNC to use a provisional rule, effectively listing Biden as a placeholder for the eventual nominee.
Meanwhile, legislative committees in the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate took the middle road, approving identical bills that would push back the state’s certification deadline from 82 days to 74 days before the general election in order to accommodate the date of Democrats’ nominating convention.
The bills now move to to the full chambers.
“We want to make sure every citizen in the state of Alabama has the opportunity to vote for the candidate of his or her choice,” Democrat Sen. Merika Coleman, the sponsor of the Senate bill, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Democrats proposed the two Alabama bills, but the legislation moved out of committee with support from Republicans who hold a lopsided majority in the Alabama Legislature. The bills were approved with little discussion. However, two Republicans who spoke in favor of the bill called it an issue of fairness.
Republican Rep. Bob Fincher, chairman of the committee that heard the House bill, said this is “not the first time we’ve run into this problem” and the state made allowances.
“I’d like to think that if the shoe was on the other foot, that this would be taken care of. And I think that Alabamians have a deep sense of fairness when it comes to politics and elections,” Republican Sen. Sam Givhan said during the committee meeting.
Trump faced the same issue in Alabama in 2020. The Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature in 2020 passed legislation to change the certification deadline for the 2020 election.
The bill stated that the change was made “to accommodate the dates of the 2020 Republican National Convention.” However, an attorney representing the Biden campaign and DNC, wrote in a letter to Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen that it was provisional certification that allowed Trump on the ballot in 2020, because there were still problems with the GOP date even with the new 2020 deadline.
Allen has maintained he does not have the authority to accept provisional certification.
Similarly, in Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, both Republicans, rejected a request from Democrats to waive the state’s ballot deadline administratively by accepting a “provisional certification” for Biden.
In a letter Monday, Yost’s office told LaRose that Ohio law does not allow the procedure. LaRose’s office conveyed that information, in turn, in a letter to Democratic lawyer Don McTigue.
LaRose’s chief legal counsel, Paul Disantis, noted it was a Democrats who championed the state’s ballot deadline, one of the earliest in the nation, 15 years ago. It falls 90 days before the general election, which this year is Aug. 7.
Ohio Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio said she was waiting to hear from the DNC on how to proceed. One of her members, state Sen. Bill DiMora, said he has legislation for either a short- or long-term fix ready to go when the time comes.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
