Data journalist Nate Silver accused the head of the Democratic National Committee of lying to the public about the party’s plan to hold a virtual roll call to nominate President Biden weeks before delegates meet for the convention in Chicago later this summer.

Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight statistical analysis site, got into a heated back-and-forth with DNC chair Jaime Harrison on Tuesday over the latter’s claims that Ohio Republicans were forcing the party to expedite Biden’s nomination by imposing a deadline to confirm him as the nominee.

The contretemps began Tuesday, when Silver posted a link to a Vox story which quoted a Johns Hopkins University professor as saying that Harrison and other party officials aligned with Biden were sowing “misinformation.”

According to their reasoning, they need to have a virtual roll call to expedite Biden’s nomination in order to meet a deadline imposed by Ohio law that requires political parties to confirm their presidential candidates 90 days before the Nov. 5 election.

The cutoff is Aug. 7 — which is 12 days before the party convention kicks off in the Windy City. Biden allies reason that this necessitates speeding up the nomination.

Ohio’s GOP-dominated state legislature approved a revised law that extended the deadline to Aug. 31 — more than a week after the convention.

Harrison claimed that since the revised Ohio statute signed by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine doesn’t take effect until Sept. 1, the old law remains in effect.

“Jaime Harrison and the DNC are blatantly lying about this,” Silver wrote, adding that “there very much will be consequences if they force Biden’s nomination thru and he loses.”

“The DNC should correct the record and proceed with its original plan, which is to let delegates vote at the party convention,” Silver wrote in a post on X.

In a subsequent post, Silver said it would be “undemocratic to circumvent” the process of nominating a candidate.

Biden handily won the Democratic primaries, so 99% of delegates are legally required to pick him at the convention. But recent doubts about his cognitive fitness in the wake of his disastrous debate performance as well as subsequent public appearances have fueled talk of replacing him.

Silver and others suspect that the move to accelerate Biden’s nomination is motivated by a desire to head off any potential challenges to the president’s candidacy.

Harrison replied to Silver, writing on X: “Nate… you can call me a lot of things but a liar is definitely not one of them. I know you THINK you know every thing but class is now truly in session.”

“Pull up a chair.”

Harrison insisted that Ohio’s original law remained in effect despite DeWine signing a measure that extended the deadline.

“Therefore the August 7th deadline will still be in place… giving rise to litigation and/or GOP games to create more hurdles and road blocks,” Harrison wrote.

If the DNC did nothing, the party would “not be in compliance” with Ohio state law — meaning that Biden could not get on the ballot.

“To not have a presidential candidate on a state ballot would have enormous consequences and impacts on turnout for all races on the ballot,” Harrison wrote.

Nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to drop out of the race — the most recent being Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

A recent survey by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats say Biden should withdraw from the presidential race.

Polls indicate that former President Donald Trump would handily defeat Biden in key swing states.