The Biden campaign is looking to steamroll the president's nomination before the national convention in Chicago on August 19-22 by holding a "virtual roll call" earlier in August.
How can the campaign get away with it? The Biden campaign is claiming that the early vote is necessary because the state of Ohio's deadline for ballot access is August 7. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned the party in April that they risked Biden being left off the Ohio ballot unless they pushed back the date of the convention or the Republican Ohio legislature passed a law granting the Democrats a waiver.
LaRose and the Republicans let the Democrats dangle for a while before the legislature did its duty and passed the waiver. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill on June 1 ending the controversy, right?
Not exactly. It seems the pro-Biden Democrats want to use the excuse that "MAGA Republicans" would find some other way to keep Biden off the Ohio ballot.
“The willingness of MAGA Republicans in Ohio to try to use ballot access to extort restrictions on democracy makes it critical to avoid giving them the power to thwart their own voters’ wishes,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “Having the early roll call ensures that Republicans won’t gather and pull off some new dirty trick.”
It's total BS, of course. The waiver has been passed and signed into law. But what a grand excuse to hurry up and virtually nominate a candidate in deep trouble with his own party.
The governor's office was flabbergasted. Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Gov. DeWine, said, “Any change in Ohio law would require Governor DeWine’s signature. The suggestion that he would sign a repeal of a bill ensuring major party ballot access that he asked for in an extraordinary special session—the first called in Ohio in 20 years—is patently absurd and ridiculous, and it is quite frankly divorced from reality.”
The urgency of the pro-Biden Democrats has forced the hand of those who want the president to step aside. An organized rebellion in the House has taken root with members circulating a letter requesting that the virtual vote not take place.
The push for a new nominee — which had been effectively frozen by last weekend’s shooting — has returned to public view, and House Democrats now appear to be seriously organizing for the first time. There’s also a clear deadline to take action that multiple Democrats privately said they hoped would push their leaders, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries or former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to take more decisive action themselves.
A draft of the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times, urges DNC members against holding a virtual roll call, instead of the customary timing during the convention in Chicago later next month. It insists that there is “no legal justification for this extraordinary and unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month.”
It goes on to suggest that some of the signatories have called for Biden to step aside and others haven’t, but “all of us, however, agree that stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea,” the letter continued.
What the request for a "virtual vote" has done is force Democrats who may have been on the fence about whether Biden should step aside to take a stand one way or the other.
“It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats — from delegates, volunteers, grassroots organizers, and donors to ordinary voters — at the worst possible time," the letter said.
The "virtual roll call" isn't sitting well with the state delegations either.
"Behind the scenes, people at the Biden campaign and DNC are working to put in the fix," Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Biden delegate from Maryland, wrote to delegates, according to an email that Axios obtained.
"Put simply, they are trying to shut down the process earlier. We can't allow it," she wrote. "I am asking you to ask the DNC to stop pushing for an early vote."
"There's an information vacuum," said Chris Dempsey, a longtime Democratic activist in Massachusetts who is working to inform delegates of their role at the convention.
The House letter asking the DNC to cancel the virtual roll call has already gotten several dozen signatures, according to Politico.
“It felt like the dam was about to break” before Saturday night, an anonymous Democratic lawmaker told Politico. “Everybody appropriately took a step back, the pressure valve was somewhat released. We all knew it would be just days before that energy would return.”
The "dam" may burst after the conclusion of the GOP convention.
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