Members of the Electoral College in the six states where President Donald Trump most fiercely contested the results cast their votes for Democrat Joe Biden on Monday, effectively cutting off the president’s path to overturn the election.
The vote marks the watershed moment that some Republican lawmakers have said would mark the end of their support for attempts to overturn the November 3 election.
All 16 voters in Michigan voted for Biden, following 63 votes previously cast by him in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden will have enough electoral votes to be officially declared president-elect when members have cast 270 votes, which is expected after California votes. Congress will officially count the votes on January 6.
Voters in 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia are voting for president and vice president in enshrined constitutional ceremonies that have drawn new attention this year after Trump refused to budge and insisted without evidence that the election was “rigged. “.
Many Republicans have refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory, pandering to Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about a stolen election and saying he had the right to file legal challenges and let the process unfold. And now, with voters casting their votes, it has.
“The Electoral College obviously brings some purpose to this,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second House Republican, told reporters last week. And South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, another Trump ally, said when asked if the president should give in: “I will speak to you on December 14.”
Trump said on Fox News on Sunday that he will continue to fight the results, even after the US Supreme Court on Friday rejected a Texas offer to overturn election results in four of the six battle states, a case that the president had called. “The Big One” who was supported by Republican attorneys general in 18 states and 126 Republican members of Congress.
Republicans said uncertified Trump voters gathered in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to cast votes in case pending litigation voided the results. But any attempt to get Congress to consider a rival list of voters “is not going to work as a matter of law,” said Edward Foley, a professor and director of an election law program at Ohio State University who has studied elections in dispute.
Later Monday, Biden will ask the country to join now that the process is over.
“The flame of democracy was lit in this nation long ago. And now we know that nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can put out that flame, ”Biden will say, according to prepared remarks that his transition team announced it would deliver Monday night. “So now is the time to turn the page. Link. To heal.”
The president’s campaign and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits that sought to invalidate Biden’s victories in the battlefield states, and almost all were rejected for lack of evidence of fraud. The president has been lobbying Republicans in Congress and in the states to help him overturn the election, and has urged state lawmakers to nominate voters rival Trump.
Rick Bloomingdale, a Biden voter in Pennsylvania, said before the meeting at the state capitol in Harrisburg that he was confident his vote would be counted and that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election would fail.
“At noon on January 20, Joe Biden will be president of the United States,” said Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. “It’s amazing to me that we have people who are actually trying to stage a coup and take the votes away from the voters.”
Pennsylvania voter Paige Gebhardt Cognetti said she was especially proud to cast her vote for Biden because she worked in the United States Department of the Treasury when he was vice president and is now mayor of Scranton, her childhood home.
“It shouldn’t matter who your parents voted for, if you’re a kid growing up in Scranton, you need to know that you can be president,” Cognetti said.
Most voters are gathering in their state capitals with restricted access and social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nevada held its meeting in its entirety by videoconference, and Arizona did not publicly disclose the location of its meeting to keep it “discreet.”
There were protests against Trump’s election outside of the Electoral College meeting in some states in 2016, and there could be demonstrations this year. Trump supporters gathered to protest in Washington on Saturday, sometimes clashing with counter-protesters and police.
Police were supposed to escort state voters from a parking lot to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, said Voter Chris Cracchiolo, chairman of the Grand Traverse Democratic Party and vice chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.
Previously: Republicans Block Inaugural Resolution Recognizing Biden’s Victory
“The moment I volunteered to do this, I thought it was a ceremonial thing,” Cracchiolo said before the meeting. “Since November 3, the magnitude and importance of this role seems to be magnifying every day.”
The Michigan legislature was closed due to security concerns, and the legislature stripped Republican State Representative Gary Eisen of his committee seats Monday after the legislator said it was going to be part of a potentially violent protest seeking to overturn the vote of the Electoral College of the state.
“I know this is not the outcome that some want,” said Michigan Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield in a statement in support of the Electoral College vote for Biden. “But we have a republic if we can maintain it. And I intend to. “
When American voters cast the ballots in a presidential race, they are actually voting for the list of electors of a candidate who cast the electoral votes of that state – one vote for each United States representative and senator. The candidate who obtains the majority of the 538 electoral votes, or 270, wins the presidency.
Biden won 306 electoral votes from the 25 states and the District of Columbia he obtained, and voters, who are generally selected by their political parties, are essentially committed to voting for the winner of the popular vote in their state. Trump captured 232 electoral votes from the 25 states he won.
The next step is for Congress to count the electoral votes for each state in a joint session on January 6 under Vice President Mike Pence. There could be some drama if a member of the House and Senate challenge a state’s voters list. That would require each chamber to debate and vote on the objection.
Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama has said he plans to object, but so far no senator has emerged to join him. Seventy-five Republican legislators in Pennsylvania also sent a letter on Dec. 4 to the state Congressional delegation urging them to object.
Any objection that gets to the ballot will likely fail with Democrats controlling the House and enough Republican senators acknowledging Biden’s victory, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor and an expert on electoral law.
But Monday’s voters’ meeting is the last step for anyone waiting for the process to unfold, Persily said.
“That constitutionally would be the end of the road,” he said.
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