United States – The Democratic National Committee will officially name Joe Biden as the party’s presidential candidate through the “virtual roll call” before the August convention scheduled in Chicago to avoid a technicality in Ohio law that may delete Biden from the list of acceptable candidates for November elections in that state.
Ohio Deadline Concerns
Ohio law mandates that all nominees must be legal by August 7. Still, Biden was not slated to be on the ballot till after the Democratic National Convention commenced on August 19. In the tradition, the Democrats’ convention is supposed to be held after the Republicans, especially in July because of the occupied White House by the Democrats, as reported by Reuters.
The virtual roll call will be done before the Ohio deadline, but the DNC has not set a particular date for it.
DNC Initiative
“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in Ohio, and all 50 states and Ohio Republicans agree,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement on Tuesday. “But when the time has come for action, they have failed to act every time so that Democrats will land this plane on our own.”
The DNC move comes despite a special legislative session convened in Ohio this week—something Republican Governor Mike DeWine had said would fix the problem. The special session did not look promising for Democrats, so they went out on their own.
Virtual Convention Precedent
It will not be the first time that Democrats have blessed their presidential nominee virtually. In July 2020, after the COVID-19 outbreak, the Democratic National Convention was nearly completely virtual; the roll call was processed in the form of videos and live footage shots filmed in different states across the country.
DNC Resolution
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee will likely vote on a resolution next Tuesday to approve changes to the roll call supporting virtual party meetings, as reported by Reuters.
Because the convention has the power to bind the full DNC membership to decisions made at the meeting, it will be voted there. The measure is unlikely to be appealed.
Leave a Reply