By Jacob Burg and Emel Akan
Contributing Writers
The Democratic National Committee intends to hold a virtual vote to nominate President Joe Biden, although the vote won’t take place before Aug. 1, according to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who is the co-chair of the Democratic National Convention’s rules committee.
Speaking at a news conference in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Walz sought to address concerns about an early nomination. Some congressional Democrats expressed reservations about a rushed process to nominate Biden for reelection in a draft letter addressed to the DNC.
Walz said that the timing of the convention necessitates an early virtual roll call but he clarified that the virtual vote “won’t happen before the first of August.”
He said the DNC needs to complete that ahead of the convention to ensure the signatures are on ballots in all 50 states, including Washington, which has an Aug. 20 certification deadline.
The DNC first planned to nominate the president before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — which runs Aug. 19 to 22 — because of Ohio’s Aug. 7 ballot certification deadline. Ohio later approved a measure to extend the deadline to allow Biden to appear on the ballot, but the DNC said it will still hold the early virtual roll call.
During the news conference, Walz responded to a question about Ohio’s measure to move its certification deadline back to allow the president ballot access. The governor asserted that there could still be challenges from Ohio’s secretary of state if the nomination isn’t done ahead of the original deadline, Aug. 7.
Walz added that Ohio isn’t the only reason for the virtual roll call, citing Washington’s deadline.
“I think the process of how we do this, it’s how we’ve always done it. So it’s not just Ohio, it’s the process of getting on the ballots” in all states, he said.
The virtual roll call “was scheduled way before the debate,” Walz added. “It was scheduled way before anything else, and the process and the agenda for this was to start setting the rules for the convention. We’ve always done this.”
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, defended the early roll call during a Tuesday news conference in Milwaukee.
He said that the virtual roll call remains because Ohio’s measure is just a “legislative fix.”
“We instituted this before they had a fix, and we’re going to continue on that path, because we’re not going to leave it up to them to change the rules,” Fulks said.
While the virtual roll call was announced a month prior to the June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, some lawmakers have called on Biden to drop out of the race due to his performance that night.
Some congressional Democrats circulated a letter on Tuesday asking the DNC to delay Biden’s early nomination. In a draft letter, the lawmakers called the early virtual roll call a “purely political maneuver.”
“We write to share our serious concerns about the DNC’s plan to hold a ‘virtual roll call’ to select our Democratic presidential nominee as early as July 21,” the letter read.
Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, who’s favored to win the Senate race in November, has urged Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.
Schiff told the Los Angeles Times in a statement on Wednesday that he has “serious concerns” about the Democratic incumbent’s chances of defeating Trump in November.
He said that although the decision to drop out from the race ultimately lies with the president, he believes “it is time for him to pass the torch.”
