Electors Begin Voting In Statehouses To Confirm Joe Biden’s Victory Over Donald Trump
Electors began casting their ballots in Vermont on Monday, the first of 50 states and the District of Columbia that will ultimately give confirmation to what has been known for more than a month: Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the presidential election.
The Electoral College vote typically is a formality that garners scant news coverage. But as Trump has made unfounded claims of election fraud, even after his campaign and his supporters have been turned back by dozens of judges and twice by the Supreme Court.
According to the results certified in states, Biden defeated Trump in the electoral college, 306-232.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday and called the election “fraudulent,” while insisting that there was still time until the inauguration to contest the results. But he blamed court losses on the media, saying, “The pressure from the corrupt corporate media to make everybody cave and bend is overwhelming.”
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Biden will speak about the Electoral College vote on Monday evening.
After he prevails, a lot of the focus will be on whether Republicans in Congress, who have refused to acknowledge him as the winner, start referring to him as president elect. That also will be true of some of Trump’s staunchest defenders on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has refused to recognize Biden as president elect, had previously said that he was waiting for the Electoral Vote.
The misinformation, rumor and innuendo surrounding the election — including the repeated claims that the election was stolen from Trump — have raised concerns of violence. Michigan closed the state Capitol to the public on Monday, amid “credible threats of violence,” according to The Washington Post.
The results will be certified by a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
Trump’s latest court defeat came over the weekend, after U.S. District Judge Brett H. Ludwig dismissed a campaign lawsuit against the results in Wisconsin, a state that Biden won.
In the National Review, columnist Andrew McCarthy, who has been a defender of the president, wrote that Trump’s team has complained about a rigged election, but they have failed to present evidence even when courts have given them the opportunity to do so. McCarthy wrote that “every time a court offers him an opportunity to establish by proof what he is promoting by Twitter, Team Trump folds. Why is that?”