Washington state, a Biden stronghold in the upcoming November elections, might pose an unexpected problem for the President as he seeks re-election.
The blue bastion in the Pacific Northwest has just joined Alabama and Ohio in noting that Joe Biden could be omitted from the November ballot due to the fact that the Democratic National Committee’s convention, at which they will officially nominate the President to represent their party this year, falls after the state’s deadline to secure ballot access.
Nonetheless, the Evergreen state seems to have found a way to keep the President eligible for the ballot. Washington’s Director of Elections Stuart Holmes, who works in the Secretary of State’s office, sent a letter on Thursday to Jamie Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee. In this letter, which was leaked to ABC News, Holmes warned Harrison about the ballot certification deadline, which falls on August 20, a mere day after the start of the DNC convention in Chicago this year.
Holmes signaled in the letter that the office would make an exception for the party this year, providing the party submits a provisional nomination certificate no later than the August 20 deadline.
This accommodating attitude comes in contrast to those exhibited by the Secretaries of State for Alabama and Ohio, who are both Republicans. They have indicated they intend to enforce their election laws to the letter, not allowing for leeway or workaround—an attitude that experts have derided as partisan and unprecedented.
Both Secretaries of State have notified Democratic party officials of the risks they run at being left off the November Ballot. Ohio’s certification deadline is August 7, while Alabama’s is August 15, both significantly earlier than Washington’s.
Scheduling conflicts are nothing new in Presidential politics. Several times in the past, late August conventions had presented similar problems, but thus far in American history workarounds such as that proposed by Washington have been used to deal with such problems.
