Inside the conservative legal fight to keep Biden ON the 2024 ballot

Republicans plan to try to make it difficult to remove President Biden from the Democratic ballot after he announced plans to step aside on Sunday. 

The influential conservative group The Heritage Foundation has been prepping a legal fight for months, first reported by DailyMail.com, in anticipation of Biden stepping aside.  

'The process for substitution and withdrawal is very complicated,' said Mike Howell, Executive Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

'We will remain vigilant that appropriate election integrity procedures are followed,' he continued. The foundation is currently weighing its first action since Biden stepped aside.

Some Republicans said removing Biden from the top of the ticket, after voters had already chosen him in primaries, is anti-democratic. 

'At this unprecedented juncture in American history, we must be clear about what just happened,' Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. 

'The Democrat Party forced the Democrat nominee off the ballot, just over 100 days before the election. Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy’ has proven exactly the opposite.' 

Now that Biden has withdrawn, it is up to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention to pick a new nominee. But from there, they can expect legal challenges from Republicans looking to prevent any other Democratic nominee from getting on the ballot in certain states. 

The Heritage Oversight project has set their sights on three contentious swing states where they believe taking Biden off the Democratic ticket would not allow anyone else to replace him: Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin does not allow withdrawal from the ballot for any reason besides death. 

In Nevada, no changes can be made to the ballot after 5 p.m. on the fourth Friday in June of an election year or 'a nominee dies or is adjudicated insane or mentally incompetent.' 

If Biden were to withdraw less than 60 days before the election Georgia his name will remain on the ballot but no votes will be counted. 

In Texas, the two party's nominees have until the 74th day before the election to withdraw from the ballot. Some states, like South Carolina, do not allow candidates to withdraw for political reasons. 

Some states don't have any laws on the books for dealing with a presidential nominee withdrawing, and there is little precedent for such a situation occurring. 

The memo concluded: 'Policymakers and the public should be prepared for all externalities that arise from President Biden not running for President in 2024. The process for substitution and withdrawal presents many election integrity issues.' 

'Adherence to the law in some states may result in that process being unsuccessful for the purposes of another candidate being on the ballot.' 

Biden stepped down Sunday after a sea of Democratic calls to do so. He had insisted he would remain in the race after the disastrous debate where his age and cognitive decline were on full display.