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As key states in the Electoral College system formally confirmed his election victory on Monday, Joe Biden went one step closer to the White House, effectively ending Donald Trump’s long-running effort to overturn the results.
State-wise votes have traditionally been a thought, due to unsubstantiated claims of Trump’s widespread fraud.
After four tumultuous years under Trump, Biden received 306 electoral college votes, surpassing the 270 needed to win. Kamala Harris, the president-elect and running vice-president, is set to take office on January 20.
Voting on Monday is unlikely to deny Biden’s victory, and with Trump’s legal campaign in decline, the president’s hopes rest with a special meeting of Congress on January 6, where the tensions against him remain unresolved.
Biden, who took office as US president at the age of 78, was scheduled to address the Electoral College and “The Strength and Regression of Our Democracy” at 8pm on Monday, his Interim Committee said.
Members of Electoral Colleges in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted for Biden on Monday as he challenged Trump in court, confirming his victories in the warring states. Voters in Arizona, which lost after Trump won in 2016, voted for Biden in the state.
“There will be those who regret that their candidate did not win, and it is unacceptable for the United States and today that the event should be less than a dignified tradition held with pride and celebration,” said Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
The Democrats said Trump’s claims about voter fraud “led to violent threats against me, my office, and those in this room today,” echoing reports of similar threats and intimidation in other states.
A group of Trump supporters called on Facebook to hold demonstrations throughout the day outside the state capital in Lansing, Michigan. But only a handful gathered in the afternoon.
Under a complex system that existed in the 1780s, a candidate becomes president of the United States, not by winning a majority of the popular vote, but by a largely population-based electoral college for the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Voters are usually party loyalists representing the winning candidate in their state, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, who give some of the state election college votes to the winning candidate in the state congressional districts.
Sometimes “rude” voters vote for someone other than the winner of their state’s popular vote, with the majority rubber-stamping the results, with officials expecting nothing else on Monday.
Trump said he would leave the White House only if he voted for Election College Biden late last month, but has since filed a number of lawsuits challenging the state vote count, putting pressure on him with his unprecedented campaign to thwart his defeat. On Monday, he reiterated a series of unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud.
He called on Republican lawmakers to nominate their own voters, basically ignoring the will of the electorate. State legislators often rejected the idea.
“I fought hard for President Trump. No one wants him to win more than me, ”said Lee Chadfield, a Republican spokeswoman for the Michigan House of Representatives. “But I love our Republic. We cannot endanger our rules, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution that will change the electorate for Trump.”
Trump’s only remaining competitor is to force Congress not to certify the Jan. 6 count after the election college referendum. Any attempt to block the decisions of a state must pass through both chambers of Congress on that day. Democrats control the House of Representatives and many Republican senators have acknowledged Biden’s victory.
In 2016, Trump won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 3m. The formal referendum called on some Democrats to call voters “rude” against Trump. In the end, of the seven broken teams, there were an unusually high number, but still very few to prevent its consequences.