today is the first day of a virtual process to nominate a Democratic candidate for president now this process has to happen before the Democratic National Convention where a candidate is typically confirmed and that's because the candidate has to be confirmed by August 7th in order for them to appear on the ballot in Ohio this year so the voting has begun around the country and will continue for 5 days senior political correspondent David Cruz has more on the process and how New Jersey delegates are voting and 263 votes for our next President Joe Biden in 2020 Democrats conducted their covid convention roll call in a clunky state-by-state video this year is expected to be a more traditional roll call but that's going to be more symbolism than anything else because the official roll call started at 9:00 a.m. today the Ohio legislature had passed a law that said that if the parties did not nominate by August 7th that no candidate would appear on the ballot for that party that vote was reversed but not before the Democrats had already set up the virtual roll call that begins today and runs through August 5th delegates will get their ballots electronically and will cast them that way in order to qualify you had to have at least 300 delegates pledged to you and only kamala Harris met that threshold so there's not going to be any mystery I don't belong to an organized political party I I'm a Democrat Laura Anne Keating is one of two uncommitted delegates from New Jersey a delegation which otherwise fell in line behind Harris almost immediately Keating who was withholding her support for Biden until he got tougher on a ceasefire in the Israel Hamas war was still waiting for her ballot when we spoke this morning she says she remains uncommitted I was going to watch what Biden did in fact the entire point of uncommitted in New Jersey was to kick the Democratic in the butt to do what they have to do not just for moral reasons but to win the election because they're not going to win the election without the young people of America but it's young people who have shown a Resurgence of energy delegate Arlene Quiñones Perez says the coalition that put Biden in the White House in 2020 appears to be getting back together I think you have a lot of people that feel um more energized now certainly the younger voters I think you're seeing that quite a bit while very supportive of President Biden I think you see a different excitement level now from these individuals which is wonderful because we're definitely need that younger age group in order to make sure that you know we're calling her president Harris soon but there was more than the impressive fundraising new voter registrations and per up polling that had Democrats in a midc convention mood today they're hoping and there are some outward signs including the former president's appearance before the National Association of Black journalists yesterday that the Trump Campaign which had planned All Along on facing sleepy Joe has been thrown for a loop at the moment they have not been able to shift gears they just haven't been able to do it fast enough and so I think that they're still trying to figure out what is the apprpriate attack to go after this new candidate this is the nightmare scenario for people like Tom Kean uh for people like Curtis Bashaw who you know just a few weeks ago were sort of rallying behind Trump he was looking like reasonable Trump this is the Trump now that we're seeing that scares away Suburban voters with an overwhelming endorsement from delegates this week a much anticipated vice president picked next week and then the actual convention itself after that Kamala Harris has turned the presidential campaign into a whole new ball game with just three months to election day I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music]