Election authorities from around the country have officially weighed in on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s desperate claims that states won’t allow Vice President Kamala Harris on the ballot as the Democratic nominee. Their message was just the opposite: Harris is good to go.
A CNN survey published Friday found that election authorities from 48 states and the District of Columbia said Harris would have no trouble getting on their respective ballots.
Officials from Montana and Florida did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment, but experts indicated that those states’ election rules suggest that the vice president won’t face any friction there, either.
Across the board, election authorities said that the Democratic Party’s decision to back a different candidate couldn’t possibly be a problem because President Joe Biden hadn’t been officially nominated. That process will take place via a virtual roll call early next month, and then more ceremonially at the Democratic National Convention later in August.
Once a candidate and their running mate are formally nominated at the convention, their names are then submitted to the states to be placed on the ballot. Since Biden was never the nominee, he’s not technically being replaced.
This wasn’t just the word in blue states, either: Reliably pro-Donald Trump states said the same thing. All seven swing states also confirmed that Harris would face no issues getting her name on the ballot if nominated next month.
Johnson has repeatedly referenced vague “impediments” and “legal hurdles” the Democrats might face in installing Harris as the candidate across different states’ electoral systems, but he has neglected to explain what those issues would be.
“It would be wrong and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these state rules for a handful of people to go in the backroom and switch it out because they’re—they don’t like the candidate any longer,” Johnson told ABC News Monday.
Johnson’s office failed to respond to CNN’s questions about his claims.
