Don’t expect a balloon drop quite yet. How the virtual roll call to nominate Kamala Harris will work

WASHINGTON — Don’t expect a balloon drop, at least not yet.

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention officially select their presidential nominee in a process that begins Thursday. But unlike in previous years, they won’t do so in the raucous, party-like atmosphere of the convention floor or even during the convention itself. Instead, they will quietly fill out electronic ballots from the comfort of their homes, offices or vacation spots, more than two weeks before the first delegate sets foot inside the United Center in Chicago.

Deputy Director Kamala Harris will be the only candidate eligible for votes after no other candidate qualified with a deadline of Tuesday evening.

Dubbed a “virtual appeal” by Democratic National Committee officials, the process will allow Harris to claim the nomination on Monday, just 15 days after President Joe Biden announced he would not seeking a second term as a sequel to widespread concerns within the party about his ability to defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump in November.

Nearly 4,700 delegates will cast their votes using an electronic voting method, which the party says is similar to the method used to count virtual votes during the 2020 party congress, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the party to conduct much of its official business remotely.

Under new procedures adopted by the convention’s Rules Committee in late July, candidates had until July 27 to declare their intention to seek the presidential nomination and until Tuesday evening to submit the 300 delegate signatures needed to qualify for the roll call vote. According to a statement from the DNC, Harris submitted signatures from 3,923 delegates, about 84% of the entire delegation and 99% of the delegates who signed a petition.

Any vote cast for anyone other than Harris during the call will be counted as “present.”

Voting now begins on Thursday. The first delegates are expected to receive their ballots at 9 a.m. ET. Voting will conclude Monday at 6 p.m. ET.

Those casting their ballots include delegates selected through state primaries and caucuses, and more than 700 others who are automatically designated delegates based on the elected office or party positions they hold. These include sitting governors, U.S. senators and representatives, former presidents, and DNC members.

These automatic delegates, informally known as superdelegates, have been the subject of much debate within the party for years because of their potential to influence the outcome of a close nomination contest, despite not being selected for their positions through a public process. Historically, however, superdelegates have never endorsed a candidate for the nomination except one who also earned a majority of the pledged delegates.

After the 2016 election, the party passed reforms that allowed superdelegates to vote only on the second and subsequent ballots. Party rules do allow superdelegates to vote on the first ballot if a candidate has won a majority of pledged delegates through the primary and caucus process, as Biden did, or has submitted the signatures of a majority of the total number of delegates, as Harris did.

The DNC has not provided details on how or when the roll call vote results will be released. The voting period closes at 6 p.m. ET on Monday, but the party has not specified whether it will release results earlier if final results are available sooner.

It’s also unclear whether the party will provide a rolling count of votes as they’re cast, similar to how the roll call is conducted in person on the convention floor, or whether it will only release the final count. The DNC also hasn’t said whether it will provide a state-by-state breakdown.

Once Harris officially wins the nomination, new congressional rules allow them to nominate her choice for vice president. At that point, the Speaker of the Congress can designate that candidate as the vice presidential nominee.

Harris said Tuesday that she had not yet decided who her No. 2 would be. But she and whoever she chooses will be on the road seven states swing from major battlegroundsincluding Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina next week.

DNC officials first reported in May that they would hold a virtual roll call to overcome a potential hurdle to getting the Democratic nominee on the ballot in Ohio. The deadline for Ohio to register for the general election ballot is Aug. 7, two weeks before Democratic delegates would have crowned the nominee at the convention.

Although the deadline had been adjusted in previous presidential election years to account for both parties’ conventions in late summer, Republicans in the state had initially planned to maintain the existing deadlinewhere a GOP lawmaker “repealed the scheduling restriction” a democratic problem.”

The Republican-controlled legislature eventually did. Make the change at the Job from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, but the law doesn’t go into effect until Aug. 31. DNC officials decided to go ahead with their virtual call as originally planned because they were concerned that Ohio Republicans could still try to keep their candidate off the ballot despite the legislative fix.

The 2020 convention’s slate of nominees was also held virtually, although that process involved remote video presentations from each state and territory.

This year’s official vote will not feature similar real-time presentations. Instead, party officials say they will hold a ceremonial roll call during the convention, mimicking the traditional ritual of state delegations announcing their votes from the convention floor to great fanfare.