DNC officials defend virtual roll call vote

The Democratic National Committee is forging ahead with a virtual roll call to pick the party’s presidential nominee, even as a steady stream of congressional Democrats called for Joe Biden to exit the race.

The Democratic National Convention Rules Committee met virtually on Friday to outline plans for the virtual roll call vote and announced they would meet no later than next Friday, July 26, to vote on the rules. Virtual voting by convention delegates is scheduled to start no earlier than Aug. 1.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Leah Daughtry, co-chairs of the committee, along with DNC staff, argued that the virtual roll call vote is necessary to prevent any potential Republican-backed legal challenges for ballot access in Ohio. Former White House counsel Dana Remus, who is advising the DNC on the issue, called the virtual roll call the “wisest, most prudent course,” otherwise it would “[leave] the door open to a potential legal challenge and that’s a risk.”

“How significant of a risk? Well, it’s hard to say,” Remus said. “People certainly disagree, and reasonably disagree — but it is a risk, and if we can avoid it, we should.”

The meeting — geared primarily at educating delegates, some of whom had expressed concern about the DNC’s process to move ahead with a virtual roll call — comes amid escalating pressure on Biden to step aside. At least some members of the convention rules committee are discussing how their committee might react to that hypothetical.

“It would be hard for it to move forward” with the virtual roll call vote should he drop out, said one member of the rules committee, who was granted anonymity to describe private conversations. “For all intents and purposes, it’d need to go to an open convention.”

Another person directly familiar with the committee’s thinking also said that if Biden were to step aside, the committee would likely re-evaluate how to proceed — including whether or not to move forward with the virtual roll call vote at all.

The co-chairs and DNC staff fielded several questions from delegates, kicked off by one person who asked if Biden could be challenged on the virtual roll call. Daughtry, who answered the question, said that according to convention rules, “any challenger would have to have the verified support of hundreds of delegates,” but “where there is a presumptive nominee, such a challenge has never happened over the past half-century of competitive primaries.”

The DNC continued to defend and explain to delegates why they believe the virtual roll call vote is necessary to fend off GOP legal challenges. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison emphasized that the process to authorize a virtual vote started in May and was ratified in mid-June.

“No part of this process is rushed,” Harrison said. “The timeline for the virtual roll call process remains on schedule and unchanged.”

Ahead of the convention rules committee meeting, Delegates Are Democracy, a group that sprang up in recent weeks to educate grassroots delegates about the nominating process, hosted an interview with Elaine Kamarck, an expert on it and a DNC member. She walked through at least one hypothetical scenario of how the party might handle Biden leaving the ticket.

The first step, Kamarck said, is to “see who wants to run” and “[determine] who would be on a roll call ballot.” She said potential candidates would likely need to gather between 300 and 600 delegate signatures to back their candidacy. A delegate could only sign one petition, and no more than 50 signatures can come from one state, Kamarck said.

“These 4,000-plus delegates would have a lot of phone calls from candidates,” Kamarck said. “Think of it as a redo of the primary system in a very, very, very compressed period of time.”

Chris Dempsey, who is leading the Delegates Are Democracy effort, expressed complaints from delegates, who said they are “not getting good, credible information about what that process might look like” from the DNC, and “that’s making delegates anxious.”