Neither Trump nor the Media: Who Really Decides the US Presidential Elections | 2020 U.S. elections

It was on Saturday (7) that, according to the projected results, the Democratic candidate exceeded the 270 Electoral College votes (out of 538) needed to reach the presidency. On the same day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris gave speeches celebrating the victory and have since discussed the government’s plans.

The projections made by the mainstream media have traditionally been accompanied by the admission of defeat by the losing candidate. At least that has been the case in the United States, as in the previous presidential election, which elected Donald Trump.

But this year, President Donald Trump did not concede defeat and his campaign team filed a series of lawsuits in several major states to challenge the results.

In one of his multiple reactions on social media, the president said that neither the media nor the researchers have the power to declare who the president is.

How is the result defined?

Unlike many other countries, the United States does not have a central electoral body that decides and certifies the results of national elections, the equivalent of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) in Brazil, for example.

Each of the 50 states has its own different rules and deadlines, which explains the confusion of the last few days, with a focus on a few disputed states.

And the press makes its projections when its team of specialists is sure that the result is irreversible. So much so that these announcements are usually enough to indicate the winner of the elections, even if it has not been officially confirmed.

In 2020, however, we face an unusual situation for a number of reasons.

On the one hand, the coronavirus pandemic and the necessary precautions caused postal voting to skyrocket, slowing down the count in some places.

On the other hand, there is a president who does not want to assume the projections of states that give Biden victory, breaking with a tradition in which the loser acknowledges defeat and offers his collaboration to the president-elect.

Instead, the Trump campaign and its legal team filed lawsuits in key states to block the process by which election officials certify results.

The certification of results is the test that the States issue confirming the winner of the elections in that territory.

Although the process varies by state, certification is generally completed in the weeks after the elections, before each state’s delegation to the Electoral College meets in mid-December to cast their votes.

Results generally released on election night are considered unofficial and it takes some time after the election for the authorities in each state to close the vote count.

To verify the results, the officials verify the data of the vote count and confirm that the handling of the ballot was correct.

The act of certification is usually carried out by the head of the state electoral body, the governor, or a board of campaign members.

Each state has different processes to verify the final vote count before the authorities formally certify the results.

The process takes a few weeks, with each county certifying the results for its region and submitting them to state election authorities within a timeframe that varies from location to location.

Many of the States have already completed this process, but in many of them the certification period remains open:

• In Nevada, the deadline is November 16.
• In Wisconsin, counties must provide certified results to the state election commission by November 17.
• In Georgia, the deadline is November 20.
• In Michigan and Pennsylvania, counties must certify results by November 23.
• In Arizona, the deadline is November 30.

In two of these states, Wisconsin and Georgia, it has been announced that there will be a vote recount, an action that can only begin after certification is done.

The electoral authorities in each state verify the results to ensure the accuracy of the final count and to detect possible technical problems, human errors or fraud (which, according to historical data, are very rare in the United States).

These verification steps and the certification law generally do not produce drastic changes in projections.

The process may be more important in very close disputes or local elections with fewer voters and narrow margins.

In order to delay certification beyond the state deadline, the Trump campaign must take strong legal action that shows that the alleged fraud or other issues are serious enough to change the bottom line.

As of November 12, no evidence of fraud appeared in the November 3 elections.

• The 2020 presidential election was the ‘safest in history,’ says the US Department of Homeland Security.
• The White House fires two officials from the US Department of Homeland Security.

Federal law establishes a date as the deadline for the computation: it is the date called “safe harbor”, which this year corresponds to December 8.

Until then, according to federal law, all state result information must have reached the “safe haven,” that is, it must have been provided by the electoral authorities in each state.

Even after all states have submitted the certification, there is still no official winner.

Another important day arrives: the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, which this year is December 14. It is the date on which the Electoral College delegates meet in each capital to formalize their vote.

The college is made up of 538 voters in total, distributed by each state in proportion to the size of its population.

This gathering is generally purely ceremonial in nature.

The rule is that all delegates vote for the candidate who obtained the most votes in their state. There have already been cases of “unfair voters” not voting for the candidate for which they were proposed, but these did not change the expected result.

There are only two states (Maine and Nebraska) that divide their electoral votes based on the proportion of votes each candidate gets.

However, as events unfold, this year’s Electoral College’s decision may not be a mere formality.

It is important to remember that, ultimately, it is the state legislature that decides which delegated candidates should cast their vote if there is no certified winner.

It cannot be ruled out that, due to the president’s allegations of alleged fraud, some state legislatures in the hands of the Republicans decide not to accept as valid the results of the elections in their own state.

Thus, on December 14, a division in the Electoral College could occur between delegates from the same state, with one group casting their vote for the winner at the state polls and the other following the guidance of the state legislature.

In that case, the law establishes that it corresponds to the Congress of the United States to choose between the two groups of delegates sent by the State, which has not happened since 1876.

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