Joe Biden’s presidential victory was confirmed Monday after he passed the 270-vote threshold in the Electoral College.
California’s electors cast their 55 votes for Biden this afternoon in a process that played out across the country and was covered by CNN. Although the Electoral College vote is typically a formality, Donald Trump’s court challenges and efforts to influence officials in key swing states gave new attention to the vote. Most Republicans on Capitol Hill have so far refused to recognize Biden as the President-elect, even though the networks and the Associated Press projected Biden as the winner on November 7.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had indicated that he would not recognize Biden as the President-elect until after the electoral votes were cast.
Biden will end up with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
More disconcerting has been Trump’s unfounded claims that the election was rigged or stolen from him. Even though his campaign and supporters have lost dozens of cases, and twice in the U.S. Supreme Court, he has refused to concede and continues to make false claims of electoral fraud.
All six swing states where Donald Trump challenged the election results have now cast their votes for Joe Biden.
Michigan’s electors cast their 16 votes for Biden, after votes in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. So far, there have been no instances of “faithless electors,” or those who sought to cast ballots that diverged from the winner of the state’s popular vote.
Michigan’s vote was not contentious, but the state Capitol was closed to the public after lawmakers reported “credible” threats of violence.
As electors cast their ballots in statehouses across the country, Donald Trump lost another challenge in court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, rejected an appeal to throw out more than 220,000 ballots.
“The challenge to the indefinitely confined voter ballots is meritless on its face, and the other three categories of ballots challenged fail under the doctrine of laches,” the judges wrote.
The results will be certified by a joint session of Congress on January 6.