(RepublicanJournal.org) – The Democratic Party is trying to move on from President Biden’s surprise withdrawal from the presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris already more or less crowned as his successor. It might not be as easy as the party is hoping, though because Federal election law has some gray areas,
State Laws Could Complicate Ballot Changes
President Biden has ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Harris as his replacement. She already has the backing of enough delegates that her confirmation as the nominee is almost certain, and Biden has already turned over his campaign machine and funds to her — although that’s facing a legal challenge from Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign, which argues that Harris using money that was donated to Biden is fraudulent.
Now another court challenge could be on its way. A conservative think tank is warning that state variations in electoral law mean it could already be too late for Biden to pull out. After the live debate between Trump and Biden on June 27, the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project warned that it would take legal action to prevent the Democrats from dropping the obviously failing president from the ballot; now the Dems have done it, and the foundation says it’s going to do what it promised — and go to court to keep Biden as the nominee.
It’s easy to see why many Republicans would rather keep Biden as their opponent. Harris doesn’t exactly look like an unbeatable candidate, but after the debate and the string of public gaffes that followed it, Biden was essentially dead in the water. If Heritage Oversight can force the Democrats to reverse Biden’s resignation, the election result is almost guaranteed.
The core of the foundation’s argument is that because states set many of their own rules for elections, replacing a nominee isn’t as easy as simply declaring the change. In Wisconsin, for example, a major party’s nominee can’t be changed on the ballot paper unless the candidate dies. In South Carolina, it can’t be changed at all. Because Biden had already won the primary process and become the party’s presumptive nominee by the time he pulled out, Heritage Oversight is warning that it could already be too late for those states to put Harris on the ballot.
The Biden campaign has already notified the Federal Election Commission of his withdrawal and Harris’s elevation. Now the Heritage Foundation says it’s investigating whether that’s actually legal — and if it isn’t, says Oversight Project Director Mike Howell, “We are planning on doing what we said we’d do.”
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