The Democratic National Committee is rolling on with plans to ensure President Joe Biden is squared away as the party's nominee by naming him through a virtual roll call before the party's convention in Chicago.
The plan, reports Axios, involves training state party chairs next week to conduct electronic voting securely so he would be named through a virtual roll call, not a traditional in-person call from the convention floor.
If Biden receives the votes from the majority of the almost 4,000 delegates, it will become even more difficult to keep him from topping the party's ticket. The voting window opens on or around July 29 and wraps up by Aug. 5, sources close to the matter said.
"We look forward to nominating Joe Biden through a virtual roll call and celebrating with fanfare together in Chicago in August alongside the 99 percent of delegates who are supporting the Biden-Harris ticket," DNC Chair Jamie Harrison said in a statement.
Harrison said no schedules have yet been announced or finalized.
The New York Times, however, reports that the process will begin with the Democratic National Convention's rules committee meeting on a video call Friday at 11 a.m., with another party group call on Sunday.
Then, all delegates are expected to start casting ballots as soon as Monday, which would take about a week.
After that wraps up, the roll call, which normally would occur on the floor at the convention, will be held, meaning the nomination could be set before the end of July.
Meanwhile, some delegates are saying that the DNC is trying to force their hand by moving up the vote, reports Axios.
"Behind the scenes, people at the Biden campaign and DNC are working to put in the fix," Maryland Biden delegate Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi wrote to fellow state delegates late week, an email obtained by Axios states.
"Put simply, they are trying to shut down the process earlier," she said, asking them to demand that the DNC stops pushing for an early vote.
"We can't allow it," she wrote. "I am asking you to ask the DNC to stop pushing for an early vote."
The DNC, however, announced plans to nominate the ticket through a virtual roll call in May, so the move is not a recent play after Biden's struggles in the June 27 debate against former President Donald Trump and the resulting concerns about his age and health. However, at that time they did not set voting dates. The convention starts on Aug. 19.
At that time, the DNC said it wanted the early vote because of Ohio's Aug. 7 deadline for ballot access. However, the state has moved the deadline to Sept. 1, so that reason is no longer relevant.
Harrison, though, still mentioned the Ohio date, saying in his statement that "we certainly are not going to leave the fate of this election in the hands of MAGA Republicans in Ohio that have tried to keep President Biden off of the general election ballot."
Biden, meanwhile, has insisted that he is the nominee, telling an audience in Detroit last Friday that he remains at the top of the ticket "because 14 million Democrats like you voted for me in the primaries."
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, the first in Congress calling for Biden to step out of the race, told Axios that those in the party who are "eager to overly protect Biden" are ignoring that the president himself invited anyone who questions his nomination to do so at the convention.