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GOP
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The Rules Committee of the DNC convened yesterday and formally adopted the rules the Democrats will use to choose their nominee. Candidates for the nomination have until Saturday at 6 p.m. EDT to submit their names for consideration. Then wannabe nominees have until Tuesday to submit signatures of at least 300 convention delegates, with no more than 50 from any one state. The rule also requires the names of both the presidential and vice presidential nominee. This will force Kamala Harris to make her choice of running mate known fairly soon (unless she can convince the committee to make an exception for her).
Once the nominees are known, the procedure depends on how many candidates are nominated. If there is only one, delegates will be sent electronic ballots and voting will begin on Aug. 1. If more than one person is nominated, then all candidates will get 5 days to make their cases to the delegates. Once that period has passed, the delegates will get at least 36 hours advance notice as to when electronic voting will start.
In any event, the voting will be completed by Aug. 7. This unusual procedure was forced by an Ohio law that states parties must present the names of their candidates to the Ohio secretary of state 90 days before the election, which is Aug. 7 this year. In the past, the legislature always waived the rule for whichever party held its convention in August, but Democrats don't trust Ohio this time. The legislature did pass a new law moving the deadline up by 2 weeks, but that law doesn't take effect until Sept. 1. The DNC didn't want to take any chances about court cases keeping Harris off the Ohio ballot. If the nomination is official on Aug. 7, all state deadlines will be met.
Nevertheless, social media is full of disinformation. In particular, one post on Instagram said that Biden's name is already on the ballot in nine states and cannot be removed. That is simply false. Biden's name could not be on any ballot yet because the DNC has not chosen a nominee yet. Instagram users may not know that but the 50 secretaries of state certainly do. That notwithstanding, it is likely that many people will read the post and believe it. (V)