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Members of the US Electoral College have begun casting the votes that will formally elect Joe Biden as the next US President.
Vermont voters were the first in the nation to vote, awarding the state’s three electoral votes to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Voters committed to President Donald Trump voted for him in Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. In New Hampshire, before the four state electors voted for Biden at the State House in Concord, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. He had delivered a poignant speech at the Democratic National Convention in August on fighting stuttering that he shares with Biden.
Monday (Tuesday NZT) is the day set by law for the Electoral College meeting. In reality, voters meet in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their votes. The results will be sent to Washington and accounted for in a joint session of Congress on January 6, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.
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Voter votes have attracted more attention than usual this year because Trump has refused to concede the election and continues to make unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.
There have been concerns about voter safety, virtually unheard of in previous years. In Michigan, for example, lawmakers from both parties reported receiving threats.
Legislative offices were closed Monday because of threats of violence. All 16 voters would gather in the Senate chamber in a ceremony led by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, over Trump.
Rogelio V. Solis / AP
Since the last election, members of the Mississippi Electoral College have signed ballot certificates in the process of formally casting their electoral votes.
Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, said the closures were made on police recommendations.
“The decision was not made because of anticipated protests, but was made on the basis of credible threats of violence,” he said.
Georgia State Police were present at the State Capitol in Atlanta before Democratic voters pledged Biden. There were no protesters less than an hour before the meeting.
Biden will address the nation on Monday night, after the voters have voted. Trump, meanwhile, is holding on to his false claims that he won the election and trying to undermine Biden’s presidency before it begins.
“No, I am concerned that the country has an illegitimate president, that is what worries me. A president who lost and lost a lot, ”Trump said in a Fox News interview that was recorded on Saturday.
After weeks of Republican legal challenges that were easily dismissed by justices, Trump and his Republican allies tried to persuade the Supreme Court last week to reserve 62 electoral votes for Biden in four states, which could have cast doubt on the outcome. .
The judges rejected the effort on Friday.
Biden won 306 electoral votes to 232 for Trump. 270 votes are needed to be elected.
In 32 states and the District of Columbia, laws require voters to vote for the winner of the popular vote. The Supreme Court unanimously confirmed this arrangement in July.
Still, voters almost always vote for the state winner because they are generally committed to their political parties. There is no reason to expect defections this year. Notable voters include Democrat Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota.
Voting is decidedly low-tech, by ballot. Voters cast one vote for president and vice president.
The Electoral College was the product of a compromise during the drafting of the Constitution between those who favored the election of the president by popular vote and those who opposed giving the people the power to directly elect their leader.
Each state gets a number of voters equal to its total number of seats in Congress: two senators plus the number of members the state has in the House of Representatives. Washington, DC, has three votes, under a constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1961.
With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states award all of their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state.
The deal struck by the nation’s founders has produced five elections in which the president did not win the popular vote. Trump was the most recent example in 2016.
Biden edged out Trump by more than 7 million votes this year.
