US Democratic candidate, Joe Biden has won the state-by-state Electoral College vote that formally determines who won the presidential election hence, the next US president.
The President-elect claimed victory after key battleground states gave him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris a clear majority of electors.
In a speech acknowledging his victory after the process, he rebuked President Donald Trump for failing to acknowledge the will of the American people.
“The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing – not even the pandemic – or an abuse of power – can extinguish that flame,” Biden said in a televised address to the nation from Wilmington, Delaware.
“In America, politicians don’t take power – the people grant it to them. In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed,” Biden said, also calling on Trump to recognize his win as a “landslide”.
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College and a majority of 270 is required to win. Biden went over the top when California, the largest US state, cast its 55 electors for the Democratic ticket. The Pacific island state of Hawaii was the last to cast its votes, bringing Biden’s total to 306 electoral votes. Trump won 232.
All of the election’s most closely contested battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia cast their votes for Biden.
Established in the US Constitution in 1787, the Electoral College is an institution that sees each state awarded a number electors in the college equal to its number of seats in Congress, which is based on population.
Prior to the election, slates of electors are chosen by candidates and their parties within each state. When US citizens vote, they actually cast ballots to elect a slate of electors for their preferred candidate, not the candidates themselves.
Those electors are often lesser-known party loyalists, but in some cases, they are well-known, as in the case former President, Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who served as Biden electors in New York State.
Biden offered thanks to all the election workers and public officials involved in tallying the vote and he criticized Trump and his supporters’ attempts to pressure officials into overturning the results.
“They knew this election was overseen – overseen by them. It was honest. It was fair. They saw it with their own eyes.
“That they wouldn’t be bullied into saying anything different was remarkable, because so many of these patriotic Americans are subject to so much enormous political pressure, verbal abuse, and even threats of physical violence.”
By law, the electors met in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia to formally cast their votes. Those documents are then sent to Congress where they will be read and counted on January 6 in a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Normally, the meeting of the Electoral College is a formality that hardly garners any attention but with President Trump attempting to challenge Biden’s election at every step of the way, this year is different.
Electors in Arizona were forced to meet in an undisclosed location and the Michigan statehouse was closed for business because of threats of violence from Trump supporters.
“Maybe the only [Electoral College meeting] that got more attention was the first one” when George Washington was elected president, Pennsylvania state Representative, Malcolm Kenyatta told reporters.
