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Joe Biden delivers remarks at an aluminum manufacturing plant in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on September 21, 2020.
Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images
- President Donald Trump has not allowed government agencies in his administration to cooperate with Joe Biden’s transition team.
- Biden will take office in January.
- He will announce the first members of his cabinet this week.
President Donald Trump still refuses to grant the US presidential election, despite the resounding victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
Trump, as of Monday, has not allowed the myriad government agencies that make up his administration to cooperate with Biden’s transition team.
However, the president-elect’s team has continued to plan to take office on January 20 and is due to announce the first members of its cabinet on Tuesday. Biden is projected to get 306 electoral votes, well above the threshold of 270 needed for victory.
Meanwhile, several key states that Trump has sought to challenge are set to certify their official election results on Monday, and the first big step in Biden’s victory will be made official.
Under America’s idiosyncratic national electoral system, the media reliably projects the winner of the presidential election in the days after the vote, but official counts aren’t determined until weeks later.
At that time, state officials can certify those results, allowing a state to select its constituents, who, with minor exceptions, are committed or required by state law to vote for the candidate who received the most votes in their state.
These voters vote on December 14. The results are approved by Congress on January 6.
READ ALSO | After Pennsylvania court defeat, Donald Trump faces new pressure to give up the election
In Michigan, all eyes will be on the two Republican members of the four-member State Canvassing Board on Monday, as they will meet to vote on certifying Biden’s victory by approximately 154,000 votes over Trump and guaranteeing all 16 state electoral votes.
A Republican member, Norman Shinkle, told The Washington Post last week that he was seeking a delay in certification, citing Trump’s unfounded allegations of voting irregularities.
Trump also hosted a group of Republican Michigan state legislators at the White House on Friday, as he and his allies have increasingly pushed for a dubious and widely disputed legal theory that holds that Republican state legislatures can appoint their own. pro-Trump voters, regardless of state results.
While the outcome of the meeting has not been disclosed, Republican state leaders later said they would “follow the normal process” and respect the results of their state.
Pennsylvania will also meet to vote on the certification of its official votes on Monday, after a federal judge dismissed and vilified a lawsuit by Trump seeking to stop the process on Saturday.
The president filed an appeal Sunday in the state, where Biden leads Trump by more than 80,000 votes. Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes.
A state judge also dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada on Friday, where officials will meet Monday to certify Biden’s advantages of about 33,000 votes.
The Trump campaign is also moving forward with its long-term recount requests.
In Wisconsin, where the Trump campaign paid $ 3 million for recounts in the state’s two largest and most liberal counties, Milwaukee and Dane, election officials have accused Trump watchers of intentionally delaying the recount by challenging the ballots so frivolous.
Under state law, the count must be completed by December 1. With little chance of Trump overturning Biden’s 20,000-vote margin of victory, observers believe his team is trying to rack up as many individual ballot challenges as possible as the basis for another legal challenge.
In Georgia, where state election officials conducted an audit and a full manual recount of the roughly 5 million votes cast, the Trump campaign requested another recount Saturday.
The recount, which will be paid by state taxpayers under local law, will be carried out using tabulating machines and is expected to be faster than the one-week manual recount.
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