The Democratic National Committee has pushed plans to electronically vote to nominate President Biden until August — amid mounting Democratic calls for him to step aside and internal lobbying against a plan to hold the digital roll call in July.
“None of this will be rushed,” DNC rules committee co-chairs Leah Daughtry and Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, wrote in a Wednesday letter first reported by CBS News and acquired by The Post.
“None of this will be rushed,” DNC rules committee leaders wrote in a Wednesday letter first reported by CBS News.
“Unlike our nation’s other major political party, our rules are set in public meetings, anchored in the Party’s charter and its traditions. That will continue in the 2024 cycle, as it must with so much at stake.”
The letter says “no voting will begin before August 1″ and that “on Friday, we will propose a framework for how to best proceed.”
A DNC source told The Post on Tuesday that digital voting was poised to happen within days — describing internal communications that it could happen sometime in “mid July.”
It’s not immediately clear when the voting is now expected to begin and end — though a process of several days at least is likely.
A group of House Democrats who want Biden to end his bid for a second term drafted and were circulating a letter asking for a delay, Axios reported Tuesday — with the group expressing concern about buzz that voting could begin July 21.
The electronic voting plan was originally devised so that the Democratic ticket would be formalized in time for the Aug. 7 deadline in Ohio for its November ballot.
Dissenters feared that the virtual vote, which is expected to span a window of at least several days, was going to happen early to squelch mounting calls for Biden to step aside following his confused June 27 debate performance, which stoked concerns about the mental acuity of the oldest-ever sitting president.
Biden would be 86 if he completes a full second term in January 2029, and fellow Democrats are concerned that questions about his fitness for office could lead to a landslide defeat by former President Donald Trump, 78.
But sources told The Post that Democrats can still pick a new candidate even if Biden is nominated electronically and later decides to retire — including by possibly reopening the process at the Aug. 19-22 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“All you do is change the rules on the floor of the convention and allow for additional ballots,” said one DNC source.
So far 20 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have publically called on Biden to end his candidacy.