By Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said on Monday the Democratic Party will deliver a presidential nominee by Aug. 7 and is committed to an "open and fair" nominating process.
Earlier on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly consolidated support for her presidential bid and secured commitments from hundreds of convention delegates.
Harris' campaign aims to wrap up her presidential nomination by Wednesday and secure a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates needed to win, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
President Joe Biden has endorsed Harris as his successor, but he cannot force delegates to follow his lead. Locking in delegate support is essential to ensuring Harris replaces Biden on the Nov. 5 ballot as the party's nominee against Republican Donald Trump.
"I want to assure you that we are committed to an open and fair nominating process," the DNC's Harrison told reporters on a conference call.
"The work ahead may be unprecedented, but we are prepared to undertake a transparent, swift and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic party."
Minyon Moore, the chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, said a virtual nominating process ahead of the Aug. 19-22 event in Chicago was still needed.
"There is still a need for a virtual component to our nominating process. That has not changed," she said, adding an electronic voting system would be used to ensure deadlines were met.
The DNC had said earlier that a virtual vote would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 5, in order to have the nomination process completed by Aug. 7, the date by which Ohio law had required a nominee to be in place to make the state's ballot.
Ohio lawmakers subsequently pushed back the deadline to Sept. 1, but party officials said they hoped to beat the Aug. 7 deadline to avoid any legal risk in the state.
"By executing this process swiftly and effectively, we will bring our party together as we head to the convention in Chicago united," Moore said.