You can’t replace President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) could officially nominate both candidates through a virtual vote before the convention, scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago. This would secure the ticket despite interparty panic.

As the polls show that Mr. Biden is losing in every battleground state and as the 81-year old president appears mentally confused and physically weak, there has been a growing amount of talk about his replacement.

Some Democrats suggest that Hillary Clinton should replace Ms. Harris in the Democratic ticket. Democrats continue to be more enthusiastic about the party’s 2016 Presidential nominee than their vice president.

Kathleen Parker, Washington Post columnist, wrote: “Indisputably, Kamala Harris’s low popularity is a significant obstacle for Biden to win. Her lackluster performance as Vice President hasn’t improved her low popularity.”

The DNC has planned a process for nominating candidates that will make it virtually impossible to switch from Biden to Harris by the time the delegates arrive in Chicago.

The DNC announced a plan early this month to approve the nomination for the Biden-Harris ticket almost before the convention. The move was initiated by party leaders when it became apparent that Ohio would not change its August 7 deadline for presidential candidates appearing on the ballot. This would have meant the nomination of Mr. Biden at the Chicago Convention had been too late.

Ohio has moved the deadline for filing to September 1, but Democrats claim they do not trust the Republican-led legislature and Governor of the state and are pressing forward with a virtually nominated candidate.

The DNC did not disclose a date for a virtual roll call.

Josh Putnam is a party rules expert, and the founder of FHQ Strategies LLC. A nonpartisan political consultancy, and he said that a virtual vote will have to wait until July 13 when Indiana Democrats choose convention delegates. Mr. Putnam suggested that the virtual vote could be more of an emergency plan.

Putnam stated that the party created some insurance and also bought some time for them to determine the details of any virtual vote including the timing.

A virtual vote would secure the Biden-Harris ticket, and prevent a fight on the convention floor over growing concerns about incumbents’ chances to win reelection.

Democrats are planning to give Mr. Biden the virtual nod amid reports of behind-the scenes panic among top Democrats, and plans to replace him with a younger candidate more likely to defeat former President Donald Trump.

Nate Silver aggregates and analyses election polls. He noted that this month, Mr. Biden’s approval rating dropped to 37.4%. This is a record low for a president.

“Dropping out would be a huge risk,” Mr. Silver wrote on X. “But there is some threshold below where continuing to run is more risky. Are we there yet? I don’t really know. “But it’s fair to ask.”

After the Democrats cleared the way to nominate online, it is possible that they will replace the ticket virtually. This could happen, for example, if Biden does poorly in the presidential debate on June 27, where he faces off against Trump for the very first time since 2020.

Virtually or personally, party officials have not even hinted that anyone else but Mr. Biden and Mrs. Harris will be nominated.

Some party officials have warned that virtual nominations could alienate Democrats, who expected Mr. Biden to be personally nominated and Ms. Harris in Chicago.

In 2020, both Democrats and Republicans staged elaborately-staged virtual nominations when in-person conventions had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 epidemic. This year both parties will hold their conventions in person, so a virtual nomination for the Biden-Harris team would be difficult to explain to voters.

Elaine Kamarck is a member of DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. She asked this month that the convention leaders hold a duplicate, in-person, roll call vote in Chicago, if the ticket was nominated virtually before the election.

She said, “Nobody will understand what we did for these reasons” during a virtual DNC Meeting. “It seems to me that we would not want to skip the drama and excitement of a vote by roll call, especially if the DNC has anything cool planned like they did in 2004.”

Minyon Moore, Chair of the Democratic National Convention, called on the party to nominate Mr. Biden before the 7th of August to eliminate any uncertainty regarding his eligibility to vote in Ohio.

James Roosevelt, the co-chairman DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee said that a virtual vote was not intended to stop those who wanted to replace Mr. Biden.

He said: “This is the only way to make sure that mega-extremists and bad-faith lawmakers in Ohio, or any other state, cannot subvert the vote of the voters.”

The Republican National Convention is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee from July 15-18.