Electoral College vote live: latest news as states confirm Biden’s victory

Even if today’s vote goes smoothly, Trump’s efforts to undermine this year’s democratic presidential election, including encouraging state legislatures to appoint their own sets of “dueling” voters, have exposed potential flaws in the system, according to Robert Alexander, professor at Ohio Northern University, author of a book on the subject.

“There are a lot of landmines in the Electoral College and this election really revealed a lot of them,” he says.

What price do “infidel” defections have today?

“We could have some,” says Princeton history professor Julian Zelizer. The hill. “Given the type of claims the president has launched and the party’s blind loyalty, this can happen. But as we have seen, most of the political world has not responded to the president by following his example.

Professor Zelizer also dismisses attempts by the president’s allies to compare the current situation with that of Florida in 2000: “The difference is that there was a serious problem. In this case, there was not. The president and the Republican Party are fabricating this. “

Also speaking of Monday’s vote, Wisconsin voter Ben Wikler says to the same expression of his concern over the post-election tensions caused by the president and concludes: “The lesson for all of us is never to take our democracy for granted again.

His fellow voter Van Johnson of Georgia, also Mayor of Savannah, shares Wikler’s concern that today’s milestone could spark more riots like the one seen in DC over the weekend when the Proud Boys took to the streets.

“I’m anxious because there are people who are crazy,” he says. “Everyone’s safety must be considered and kept at the forefront of our minds as we undertake this process.”

This is very interesting – it seems that Trump, Scalise and Brooks have been wrongly taking the public will for this fight for granted.

House minority whip and Louisiana Republican Congressman Steve Scalise has said not even the Electoral College ballot will convince him that the Democrat won last month’s election, earning the disdain of Chris Wallace. Fox News Sunday Yesterday.

“Let this legal process unfold itself,” Scalise said, apparently undaunted in advocating for millions of votes cast fairly by American citizens to be thrown out.

Another congressman, Mo Brooks of Alabama, also promised to file challenges when Congress reviews the vote on January 6, although both houses would almost certainly reject such an effort.

Brooks maintains that “Congress has a superior role under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution than the Supreme Court,” and sided with the president to the end.

While electoral votes typically involve some pomp and circumstance, most of this year’s events will shrink significantly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In Michigan, for example, all 16 voters are allowed to bring only one guest; Arizona has shifted its ceremony from the capitol building to an unassuming government facility and narrowed the guest list. At least one state, Nevada, intends to cast its electoral vote completely virtually.

The voter election process varies by state. In some, state parties elect voters at state or local conventions, while in others, party leadership chooses the list. In Pennsylvania, the presidential candidates themselves choose their constituents, while in California, the Democratic candidates for Congress select them.

While some constituents like the aforementioned Abrams and Noem may be well-known political figures, most are longtime devotees of state parties, like Bonnie Lauria, a retired General Motors worker in West Branch, Michigan.

“I held most of the positions, from the local level to the state central,” said the 79-year-old. “This is one that I haven’t had the privilege of being a part of. I’m glad it’s my turn.”

Another Michigan Democratic elector, Blake Mazurek, a 52-year-old history professor, said he hopes the vote will send a message that the democratic system continues to function despite Trump’s rhetoric.

“I hope that many in America have a sense of security that our country is not completely broken,” he said.

The president-elect, they recall, the old man with the white teeth who actually won, will give a speech from Wilmington, Delaware, tonight after he and Kamala Harris have certified their victory.

Today’s state-by-state voting, traditionally a formality and an afterthought, has assumed enormous significance this year in light of Trump’s unprecedented assault on the nation’s democratic process.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview broadcast Sunday, the president insisted the matter “was not over” and expressed concern that the nation is led by an “illegitimate” successor.

“No, it is not over. We continue and we will continue to advance. We have numerous local cases, ”Trump told Brian Kilmeade of Fox and friends, falsely claiming that he won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, while noting that he has an ongoing case in Wisconsin.

“We’re going to speed it up as much as we can, but you can go as fast,” the president told the expert as they attended the Army-Navy soccer game at West Point on Saturday. “They give us very little time. But we catch them, as you know, as fraudulent, abandoning ballots, doing so many things that nobody can believe it. “

“This was not a close election,” Trump insisted. “You look at Georgia. We won big in Georgia. We won big in Pennsylvania. We won big in Wisconsin. We won it big. “

“What happened to this country is that we were like a third world country,” he continued.

He kept it that way last night on Twitter, still disputing the outcome (and being censored) before attacking the United States Supreme Court for “cowering” rather than supporting the challenge presented on his behalf by the Texas attorney general and a collective. of undecided states last week. .

Griffin Connolly has this report.

The 538 members of the United States Electoral College will meet Monday to cast their votes on behalf of all 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) to elect the next president, formally confirming Joe Biden as president-elect.

Barring surprise defections, Biden is expected to claim 306 votes to Donald Trump’s 232 based on last month’s election results, moving the country closer to ending a nightmarish post-election period in which Trump has tenaciously contested his crushing defeat to through a series of frivolous. trials, which have so far failed to substantiate their unfounded claims of widespread electoral fraud.

Today’s results will be sent to Washington and accounted for in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, paving the way for Biden’s inauguration two weeks later.

In 32 states and DC, laws require voters to vote for the winner of the popular vote. The United States Supreme Court unanimously upheld this arrangement in July. Voters almost always vote for the state winner anyway because they are generally dedicated to their political party. While there are sometimes a handful of “dishonest” voters who vote for someone other than the winner of the popular vote for their state, the vast majority simply approve of their state’s results.

Officials don’t expect anything different on Monday.

In capitals like Lansing, Michigan; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and voters in Atlanta, Georgia, generally loyal to the party, will meet to formally cast those votes. The process is decidedly low-tech, per paper ballot. Voters cast one vote for president and vice president.

Notable voters readers may recognize in Monday’s proceedings include Democrat Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota.

The Electoral College was the product of a compromise during the writing of the Constitution of the United States between those who were in favor of electing the president by popular vote and those who opposed giving the people the power to choose 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 Founding Fathers has produced five elections in which the president did not win the popular vote. Trump was the most recent example in 2016, but Biden surpassed him by more than 7 million votes in November.