December 15, 2020
The Electoral College continued voting on Monday afternoon, December 14, in Joe Biden as the president-elect—and that President Donald Trump has said will nudge him further toward leaving the White House.
By early afternoon, electors in some of the battleground states that Trump had contested—among them, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona—had voted, with no surprises or defections, The New York Times reported.
Concurrently, the Supreme Court in Wisconsin rejected yet another lawsuit from the Trump campaign, ending the last current legal hurdle in that state.
Despite palpable tensions across the country, wrought in large part by the rhetoric of the president, the Times opined, the Electoral College process appeared to be proceeding smoothly.
“It’s not just out of tradition but to show folks, especially now more than ever, our system works,” said Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, in opening remarks before the state’s four electors cast their ballots for Biden.
Nevada’s six electors all cast their votes for. Biden, as expected, holding their ballots in front of the camera during the virtual meeting, and voters in Pennsylvania cast their ballots, giving 20 electoral votes. The states are two of five that some of the president’s closest allies in the House are eyeing to challenge on January 6 in a final-stage effort—all but certain to fail, The Times averred—to reverse Biden’s victory.
Despite the definitive defeat in the Electoral College, Trump has remained defiant—spending his weekend attacking the Supreme Court for rejecting a Texas lawsuit against four battleground states; and issuing more baseless accusations about the election from his Twitter account. The president has shown no indication he intends to concede the election.
The vote will largely remove any cover for Republicans in Congress who have refused to acknowledge Biden as the president-elect. In providing Trump the room to dispute his loss, Republicans in Congress presented the Electoral College vote as the new marker for when a presidential victory should be recognized.
“Everything before Monday is really a projection,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, December 13.. “If the president loses, and it appears that he will when the electors vote, he should put the country first, take pride in his accomplishments, congratulate Joe Biden and help him off to a good start.”
Research contact: @nytimes