The choice of a virtual roll call in lieu of the traditional, in-person convention vote was an emergency pivot Democrats made in late May while the Ohio legislature sputtered to push back the state’s due date to accommodate the Democrats’ relatively late convention.
Despite the party’s internal fix, the Ohio legislature ended up passing a bill that extended the state’s deadline from Aug. 7 to Sept. 1, more than a week after the Democratic National Convention concludes. However, the fix comes with a catch: The bill extending the deadline won’t become effective in Ohio until Sept. 1 — the same day as the deadline — which has raised concerns and sowed distrust for some Ohio Democrats.
“As state senator, I voted for that. But I don’t trust that that bill solves the problem,” said Ohio Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, a consultant for the Ohio Democratic Party who will serve as the director of Ohio’s delegation for the eighth convention in a row this August.
DeMora told this news outlet that the delay to the deadline extension actually going into law creates an unwelcome window for unfavorable legal interpretation. He said the party would rather be absolutely sure that their nominee could get on the ballot.
“We have told them that we don’t trust what the legislature passed,” said Demora. “If it’s up to (Ohio Secretary of State) Frank LaRose to interpret a loophole, he is not on our side, and we don’t trust him.”
Ben Kindel, a spokesperson for LaRose’s office, said “there is no doubt” that Ohio’s deadline extension would allow the Democrats to successfully nominate Biden at the convention. He said Demora and the party are misguided with their concerns.
“The issue is resolved in Ohio, and Democrat proxies know that and should stop trying to scapegoat Ohio for their own party’s disfunction,” Kindel said.
Biden’s past few weeks have been marred by a contingent of Democrats throughout the party losing faith in his candidacy following his widely panned debate performance in late June against former President Donald Trump.
In the past few days alone, a delegation of U.S. House Democrats penned a letter against nominating Biden early, arguing that it would be a “terrible idea” to stifle debate about the party’s nominee with the early roll call vote, according to the Associated Press; and an AP poll found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw his candidacy.
DeMora, who expressed distrust about the poll, said no such sentiments have seeped into Ohio Democrats’ positions.
“I have not heard any one of my delegates say that they don’t want to vote for Joe Biden,” DeMora told this news outlet. “I mean, just the opposite — I’m getting messages from my delegates saying, ‘We support Joe Biden and we 100% want to vote for him.’”
Even if Democrats conduct a virtual roll call vote ahead of their convention, it wouldn’t necessarily lock Biden into the nomination, as the DNC rules could committee could still vote to hold an in-person roll call in Chicago, said Elaine Kamarck, a longtime member of that committee and expert on the party’s nominating process.
But, whether it’s cemented via virtual roll call or an in-person convention vote, DeMora believes Biden’s confirmation as the Democrats’ presidential nominee is a foregone conclusion, given that the sitting president swept the primaries in each state earlier this year and won nearly every Democratic delegate ahead of the convention.
“Our rules state that delegates have to vote for him, except if there’s some extenuating circumstances, and being old is not an extenuating circumstance as far as I’m concerned,” DeMora said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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