The Democratic National Committee will move forward with a virtual roll call to establish President Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee in early August, according to a letter sent to committee members on Wednesday that was obtained by the Washington Examiner.
It’s not entirely clear what day the roll call will take place, but DNC officials say it will occur after Aug. 1 but before Aug. 7, which was originally Ohio’s filing deadline that threatened to keep Biden off the 2024 ballot before it was extended by state leaders. The date comes as some reports suggested the DNC would begin early voting as soon as next week despite calls from inside the Democratic Party for Biden to step aside.
“None of this will be rushed. Unlike our nation’s other major political party, our rules are set in public meetings, anchored in the Party’s charter and its traditions,” the letter states. “That will continue in the 2024 cycle, as it must with so much at stake.”
The DNC is set to meet on Friday to begin consideration of its party platform and how to proceed with holding its convention next month. However, reports of the meeting raised concerns that the committee was attempting to hold the roll call early to establish Biden as the nominee — something DNC officials said was never the case.
“This meeting was scheduled for many months, the one on Friday, and it was never meant to be the virtual roll call,” Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), co-chairman of the DNC rules committee, told the Washington Examiner. “It will be setting out the agenda as the rules committee moving forward.”
The letter looks to quell concerns among Democrats that the DNC was considering moving forward with nominating Biden and avoid debate for the president to withdraw from the race. A group of Democratic lawmakers even reportedly circulated a letter earlier this week calling against the early roll call, arguing it was “unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month.”
“We respectfully but emphatically request that you cancel any plans for an accelerated ‘virtual roll call’ and further refrain from any extraordinary procedures that could be perceived as curtailing legitimate debate,” the letter draft states.
Instead, DNC officials argue the early roll call is being done to ensure Democrats are not left off the November ballot after Ohio officials passed a new law to extend the filing deadline that threatened to omit Biden.
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The Ohio state legislature enacted legislation to extend the state’s filing deadline from Aug. 7 to early September. However, that law does not take effect until Sept. 1, which officials said made it “likely to face litigation about the efficacy of our filings.”
The DNC will meet on Friday to propose a framework for “how best to proceed” with the party’s convention, according to the letter. The committee will then reconvene next week to “consider and adopt specific rules for that purpose.”