WASHINGTON (AP) – Presidential voters are casting their ballots to elect Joe Biden as the country’s next president. This year gained even more prominence as President Donald Trump refused to admit he had lost his race for re-election.
Democrat voters in the major war-torn states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania voted for Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in less important action on Monday, as security increased in some states. Nevada voters met via zoom due to corona virus infection.
Monday is the day set by law for the meeting of the Election College. In fact, voters in 50 states and the District of Columbia cast their ballots. The results will be sent to Washington and will be chaired by Vice President Mike Pence at a joint meeting of Congress on January 6.
Trump refused to agree Election and unsupported fraud allegations continue.
Unheard of in previous years, there are concerns about voter safety. In Michigan, lawmakers from both parties reported receiving threats.
Legislative offices there were closed Monday in connection with threats of violence. The 16 voters were to meet in the Senate chamber at a ceremony chaired by Democrat Gretchen Whitmer. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes or 2.8 percent more than Trump.
Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkie, said the closures were based on law enforcement recommendations “based on credible threats of violence.”
Georgia State Police were in operation at the State Capitol in Atlanta, where Democrat voters promised to meet Biden. No protesters were seen less than an hour before the meeting.
While the Electoral College was formally confirming Biden’s victory, some Republicans refused to acknowledge that reality. Their opposition to Biden, however, had no practical effect on the electoral process, with the Democrats set to take office on January 20.
Despite Biden’s victories in Georgia and Pennsylvania, the Republicans who were Trump voters met anyway. Republicans in Pennsylvania have said they gave a “practical vote” to Trump and Pence in the courts, which have repeatedly rejected challenges to Biden’s victory.
In Trump-winning South Carolina, Iowa and other states across the South and Midwest, his voters duly voted for him.
In New Hampshire, 13-year-old Brighton Harrington led the group before four state voters voted for Biden at State House in Concord. At the Democratic National Convention in August he delivered a moving speech on the struggle with the dilemma he shares with Biden.
Vermont voters were the first in the country to vote on Monday, and they chose Biden and Harris.
Biden is to address the nation Monday night, after voters cast their ballots. Trump, meanwhile, has been clinging to false claims that he won the election, trying to undermine Biden’s presidency before it even began.
“No, I’m worried about the country having an illegal president. I’m worried about a president who has failed and lost badly,” Trump was quoted as saying in a Fox News interview Saturday.
Following several weeks of Republican legal challenges that were easily dismissed by judges, Trump and Republican allies last week sought to set aside 62 election votes for Biden in four states in the Supreme Court, which may have cast doubt on the results.
The judges rejected the attempt Friday.
Biden received 306 election votes 232 for Trump. 270 votes are required to select.
In 32 states, and in the District of Columbia, laws are needed to ensure that the people vote for the winner. The arrangement was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in July.
Voters always vote for the state winner somehow because they are usually dedicated to their political parties. There is no reason to expect any shortcomings this year. Leading voters include Georgia’s Democrat Stacey Abrams and South Dakota’s Republican government Christie Noim.
Voting by paper ballot is less technical. Voters each cast one vote for the president and vice president.
The Electoral College was the result of a compromise between those who supported the election of the President by popular vote during the drafting of the Constitution and those who opposed giving the people the power to directly elect their leader.
Each state receives the same number of voters as its total seats in Congress: two senators and a number of members in the House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. has three votes under the 1961 constitutional amendment. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states give all of their electoral college votes to those who win the popular vote in their state.
The deal struck by the country’s founders has produced five elections in which the president did not win the popular vote. Trump is the most recent example in 2016.
This year, Biden topped Trump by more than 7 million votes.
Then there is one more step: inauguration.