US Electoral College place to verify Biden win as Trump fights on
14 December, 2020
Long a mere formality, a vote on Monday (Dec 14) by members of the Electoral College to formally recognise Joe Biden as another US president has taken on unusual import this season with Donald Trump stubbornly refusing to admit defeat.
The results of the Nov 3 vote have already been certified by each one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; the Democrat gained with an archive 81.3 million votes, or 51.3 % of these cast, to 74.2 million, and 46.8 percent, for the Republican president.
But in America, the occupant of the White House is chosen by indirect universal suffrage, with each state allocating its electors - whose numbers are essentially predicated on population - to the candidate who carried the status.
The results confirm a fairly easy victory for Biden, with 306 of the 538 electoral votes, to 232 for Trump, with 270 necessary for election.
Electoral College members meet up with Monday to formalise the process, although electors actually encounter separately in each state.
Biden will deliver a speech at night to celebrate the most recent confirmation of his win and "the strength and resilience" of US democracy - a clear jab in Trump's unprecedented stance.
Electors are area political officials or perhaps activists, civil society figures or perhaps friends of candidates.
The majority are unknown to the wider public, though national personalities occasionally participate - want Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election but who will vote Monday in NY to verify President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
NO TRUMP CONCESSION
Although there were a few "faithless electors" in past years - who cast votes for someone apart from the candidate who won their state - there haven't been enough to improve an election outcome.
So Biden's victory will become even more official on Monday.
But Trump, still the legal occupant of the White Property until Jan 20, has continued to create baseless assertions that the November vote was the "MOST CORRUPT ELECTION IN US HISTORY," as he tweeted just as before on Sunday.
He added: "Just how do claims and politicians confirm an election where corruption and irregularities are documented throughout?"
Actually, his campaign is not able to file any widespread fraud, and its own legal challenges to the vote - in a large number of suits, been told by scores of judges - have practically all been dismissed, often in scathing language.
AN ULTIMATE HUMILIATION
Within an ultimate humiliation, the US Supreme Court - despite having a conservative majority assured by three Trump appointees - on Friday bluntly refused to even consider two Republican challenges to the vote.
Many Republican lawmakers are about record as backing Trump's false claims of fraud.
Some may finally come to be willing to recognise Biden's victory once the Electoral College ratifies it.
But with polls showing that only one found in four Republican voters accept the election results as valid, Trump is not expected to surrender anytime soon.
"WE'VE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!" he tweeted.
This weekend, when asked on Fox News whether he'd attend Biden's inauguration on Jan 20 - as demanded by protocol and centuries of tradition - the former real estate magnate snapped, "I don't want to speak about that."
The president might yet seek to use America's drawn-out transition process in a single last attempt to reverse the results: some elected officials allied with Trump have speculated about contesting the effect on Jan 6 when Congress is to formally validate the Electoral Congress tally.
Such a maneuver is offered virtually no chance of succeeding.
Regardless, Trump's struggle against a repeatedly confirmed result seems sure to leave Biden facing a steep challenge with the country considerably more divided than ever.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com