Less than six weeks after the U.S. election, President-elect Joe Biden takes another important hurdle before his inauguration: in the 50 U.S. states and the capital district of Washington, the 538 electors gather to vote for the future president.
In the vast majority of states, the winner of the election gets all the votes of the electoral people there. According to the certified results, the Democrat Biden has 306 electoral votes and the Republican incumbent Donald Trump has 232. The results will not be officially announced until Jan. 6 in Congress in Washington.
Biden is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 20 in Washington January. Trump continues to fight back against his defeat in the Nov. 3 election. The president is elected indirectly in the United States. The winner is whoever can muster at least 270 electoral votes. On Monday, each elector will receive his or her own ballot, which will be signed and sent to Vice President Mike Pence in his capacity as president of the U.S. Senate. Copies will go to other state institutions and the federal government. Biden announced he would comment Monday evening (local time).
The vote of the electoral college is usually a formality because the losing candidate usually concedes defeat on election night. Trump, however, still maintains that it was actually he who won the election, and considers himself deprived of his victory by fraud. He wrote on Twitter Sunday, “How do states and politicians certify an election where corruption and irregularities are documented throughout?” Neither Trump nor his lawyers nor his supporters have provided evidence to support their allegations.
The Trump camp has so far failed in more than 50 lawsuits challenging the election results. On Friday, the Supreme Court in Washington also dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in four states. Trump announced in an interview broadcast Sunday by the Fox News network that he would nevertheless continue to fight legally against his defeat. “It’s not over,” he said. There are still “several local cases” in states where his lawyers are challenging the election results, he said. Trump is not considered to have any real chances. (FN)
by Jeremy Abbott – American Correspondent
