The Biden campaign says the Democratic National Committee intends to go ahead with its plan to conduct a virtual vote ahead of the convention in August.
President Joe Biden is expected to secure the 2024 presidential nomination through a virtual vote held before the end of July, ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August.
President Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, confirmed on July 16 the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will move forward with the plan as previously scheduled, organizing a virtual roll call before the convention.
“I think the answer here is very simple,” Mr. Fulks said during a press conference in Milwaukee addressing the decision. “There have been virtual roll calls in previous presidential elections.”
The plans to nominate President Biden ahead of the Aug. 19 convention predates his June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump. Following the debate some lawmakers called on President Biden to drop out of the race.
The exact date of the roll call has not been released, but the DNC has indicated it will do so by late July.
The DNC did not respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.
The plan to nominate the president ahead of the convention stemmed from an Ohio law that requires all candidates to be legally certified by Aug. 7 to qualify for ballot access. With the DNC convention not beginning until Aug. 19, under the law, President Biden would have been kept off the November ballot in the state.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called a rare special session to address the issue in late May.
On May 31, Ohio’s Legislature approved a measure to temporarily extend the certification deadline so that President Biden would be eligible for the November ballot. Despite the temporary fix granting the president Ohio ballot access, the DNC said at the time it will still hold the early virtual roll call.
Questions Over Necessity
Mr. Fulks during the press conference blamed Ohio Republicans for playing games, referring to the rule change.
“We have an obligation to make sure, as we have said, to stand by fair and free elections and make sure that the process runs as smoothly as possible,” Mr. Fulks said.
“It is our obligation as a campaign to make sure that President Biden is on the ballot.”
Mr. Fulks was asked why the virtual roll call is still necessary after Ohio changed the rules.
“It’s the fact that they solved it with a legislative fix,” he responded. “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.”
The 2024 Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22.
This is not the first time Democrats have approved their nominee virtually; they opted to do so in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. That nomination, however, occurred during the virtual convention, not before it.
Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress have been circulating a letter asking the DNC to delay the early nomination of President Biden.
In a draft letter viewed by The Epoch Times, they call the virtual roll call process “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 addressed to DNC members states.
It is unclear how many Democrats will sign the letter.
