2 weeks ago
11 Today's electoral college vote has included no good news for Donald Trump. So his team is resorting to a new tactic.
news.com.au December 15, 2020 3:11AM
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Last updated December 15, 2020 8:20AM AEDT
This is it. Nearly six weeks after the US election, the electoral college is finally meeting today to formally make Joe Biden the country's next president.
Before we go any further, I should probably explain what the electoral college actually is.
As you may have noticed, the United States has a rather convoluted system. Technically, when Americans went to the polls on November 3, they were not voting directly for a presidential candidate. Their votes were actually used to choose a group of electors, whose job is to pick the president on their behalf.
This is why, on election night and beyond, you heard so much talk about “electoral votes”, rather than the popular vote.
In presidential elections, the winner of each state earns its haul of electoral votes – i.e. the state’s electors are pledged to vote for that candidate in the electoral college. And it takes 270 electoral votes to win.
After the election, the states take a few weeks to certify their results, and then the electoral college meets to make everything official. That is what’s happening today. Electors are gathering in the capitals of their respective states to cast their ballots.
It is usually a mere formality. But things were a little different this year, because President Donald Trump had refused to concede defeat. He spent recent weeks pressuring several key states Mr Biden won to send delegates to the electoral college who would pick him instead, in defiance of their states’ voters.
That effort didn’t work today. All the contested states have already cast their electoral votes, and all of them supported Mr Biden.
Nevertheless, the Trump campaign still isn’t giving up, as White House adviser Stephen Miller made clear on Fox News this morning.
Mr Miller insisted there was still “more than enough time” to overturn “this fraudulent election result”. One reason for his confidence? In a handful of the swing states, supporters of the President were holding their own “alternative” votes.
“An alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we are going to send those results to Congress,” Mr Miller said.
“You have an alternate slate of electors in a state like, say, Wisconsin. Or in a state like Georgia. And we’ll make sure that those results are sent up side-by-side to Congress.
“We have the opportunity, every day between now and January 20, to say that slate of electors in the contested states is the slate that should be certified to uphold a free and fair election and an honest result.”
His hope is that these alternate electoral votes, cast for Mr Trump instead of Mr Biden, will eventually be counted by Congress on January 6.
The problem here is that the Republicans don’t actually have valid votes to cast, because they’re not actual electors. The real ones, whose votes actually count, were appointed based on the legal, certified results in each state.
Read on for our live coverage.
Live Updates
Sam Clench
Joe Biden is going to speak later this evening, US time, presumably after he passes 270, or perhaps after the last state (Hawaii) finally reports its result.
The transition team has released a few quotes from his speech ahead of time.
"If anyone didn't know it before, we know it now. What beats deep in the hearts of the American people is this – democracy," Mr Biden will say.
"The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing – not even a pandemic, or an abuse of power – can extinguish that flame.
"In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. We the people voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact.
"Now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal."
Loads of unnecessarily flowery rhetoric there. Truly, a return to normalcy in US politics.
Sam Clench
Texas and its 38 electoral votes have come in, pushing Donald Trump above 200. Meanwhile, Massachusetts' 11 votes have gone to Joe Biden.
That leaves just four more states, though the last of them won't report for at least three hours yet.
Montana's three electoral votes will go to Mr Trump.
The remaining 66, courtesy of California, Oregon and Hawaii, will go to Mr Biden.
The current count is 240-229 in Mr Biden's favour. And remember, the threshold for victory is 270. So once California reports its result, that will officially seal the deal.
Sam Clench
The Pennsylvania Republican Party has released a statement on its "alternative" electoral college vote today.
"At the request of the Trump campaign, the Republican presidential electors met today in Harrisburg to cast a conditional vote for Donald Trump," it says.
"We took this procedural vote to preserve any legal claims that may be presented going forward," the Trump campaign's Pennsylvania chair, Bernie Comfort, added.
"This was in no way an effort to usurp or contest the will of the Pennsylvania voters."
OK, rightio, but as Reuters' crime and justice reporter Brad Heath points out here, the Trump campaign doesn't have any remaining legal claims in Pennsylvania and there are no signs that any new ones are forthcoming.
The campaign's biggest lawsuit in the state, which Rudy Giuliani argued in court himself, got rejected by a panel of conservative judges from the Third District Court of Appeals late last month.
Mr Giuliani and his colleague Jenna Ellis both indicated they would appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court, but it has been more than two weeks now and they still haven't got around to it.
Pennsylvania GOP had their own slate of electors vote today “to preserve any legal claims that may be presented going forward.” There … aren’t any.
Trump’s lawyers said weeks ago they would take a PA case they lost to the Supreme Court, but they still haven’t filed the papers. https://t.co/vSVvU7m9G1
Sam Clench
A couple more states have finalised their votes.
Missouri: 10 votes for Trump
Washington: 12 votes for Biden
We're expecting a big chunk of votes for the President shortly, courtesy of Texas. That will push him well above 200.
California, with its haul of 55 votes for Joe Biden, is still a couple of hours away.
Sam Clench
Earlier, we mentioned the "alternative" electoral vote counts Republicans are holding in some states.
They tried to do it in Michigan, a state Joe Biden won by about 155,000 votes, but which Donald Trump maintains he actually won.
Michigan held its real electoral college vote at the state Capitol, which was shut to the public due to security concerns.
The Republicans' "alternative" electors showed up a short time ago and requested entry to the building. The police stopped them, saying the actual electors had already signed in.
This footage comes from Detroit News reporter Riley Beggin.
They said that they were the Republican electors there to cast their vote for president. State police declined to let them enter the building or leave votes offered in a manila envelope pic.twitter.com/rNVIwc5ZXC
— Riley Beggin (@rbeggin) December 14, 2020Sam Clench
Here's another batch of states. This one includes Michigan, which was the last remaining state contested by Donald Trump.
Again, there were no faithless electors. Michigan followed its certified popular vote result and gave its support to Joe Biden.
Colorado: 9 votes for Biden
District of Columbia: 3 votes for Biden
Florida: 29 votes for Trump
Idaho: 4 votes for Trump
Maine: 3 votes for Biden, 1 vote for Trump (this state splits its votes)
Michigan: 16 votes for Biden
New Mexico: 5 votes for Biden
North Dakota: 3 votes for Trump
South Dakota: 3 votes for Trump
Utah: 6 votes for Trump
West Virginia: 5 votes for Trump
Wyoming: 3 votes for Trump
As things stand, Mr Biden leads the count 202-174.
Sam Clench
Vanquished 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton was among Joe Biden's electors in New York (where she used to serve as a senator).
Even while taking part in the electoral college process herself, she reiterated her view that it shouldn't exist.
I believe we should abolish the Electoral College and select our president by the winner of the popular vote, same as every other office.
But while it still exists, I was proud to cast my vote in New York for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. pic.twitter.com/th9qebu9ka
Sam Clench
This morning one of Donald Trump's advisers, Stephen Miller, was on Fox News. He insisted the Trump campaign still had "more than enough time" to overturn "this fraudulent election result", despite today's electoral college vote.
One reason for his confidence? In a handful of the swing states, supporters of the President have been holding their own "alternative" votes.
"An alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we are going to send those results to Congress," Mr Miller said.
"You have an alternate slate of electors in a state like, say, Wisconsin. Or in a state like Georgia. And we'll make sure that those results are sent up side-by-side to Congress.
"We have the opportunity, every day between now and January 20, to say that slate of electors in the contested states is the slate that should be certified to uphold a free and fair election and an honest result."
These "alternate" electoral college votes Mr Miller promised have indeed been taking place today.
So in Georgia, for instance, some Republicans met and cast "electoral votes" for Mr Trump, even though Mr Biden won the state.
#Breaking Georgia Republicans are meeting at the Cap to select their own slate of Trump electors to send to Washington even as Georgia Democrats are meeting to send the official slate of Biden electors to Congress. pic.twitter.com/TJZGjcJS57
— Richard Elliot (@RElliotWSB) December 14, 2020Biden won Wisconsin and his Electoral College slate is meeting now.
But the Republicans are also having their slate meet at the Capitol right now, even though there is no certification for Trump.
The problem here is that they don't actually have valid votes to cast, because they're not actual electors.
The real ones, whose votes actually count, were appointed based on the legal, certified results in each state.
"Don’t be distracted by these preposterous mock electoral votes. They don’t change how anything is going to unfold, since congressional Republicans could’ve objected without them," says law professor Steve Vladeck.
That's a good segue into what happens next, once today's vote is finished.
There are two basic steps left in the process.
First, on January 6, Congress will formally count the electoral votes that got cast today.
That will give Republican politicians a chance to object to stuff, but as the Democrats control a majority in the House of Representatives, there ultimately isn't much they can do beyond making some noise.
Mr Miller's hope is that today's "alternate" electoral votes will give congressional Republicans something to talk about. Prof Vladeck's point is that there was nothing stopping them from raising objections anyway. So … the whole thing seems rather pointless.
After Congress counts the votes, on January 20, Mr Biden's inauguration will take place and he will become the new president.
That's it. It's pretty simple from this point forward.
Sam Clench
Another batch of electoral college results, and again, nothing that threatens to derail us from the inevitable conclusion.
Here you'll note Wisconsin giving its votes to Mr Biden, shortly after that decision earlier from the state's Supreme Court.
Kansas: 6 votes for Trump
Louisiana: 8 votes for Trump
Minnesota: 10 votes for Biden
Wisconsin: 10 votes for Biden
Mr Biden now leads 166-120.
Sam Clench
OK, while I was writing up that Wisconsin Supreme Court judgment, we got another large batch of electoral college results.
This group includes the swing states Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. None of them delivered any surprises.
Arizona: 11 votes for Biden
New York: 29 votes for Biden
North Carolina: 15 votes for Trump
Ohio: 18 votes for Trump
Pennsylvania: 20 votes for Biden
Rhode Island: 4 votes for Biden
Sorry to rob this event of its drama, but we're now waiting for just two of the states Mr Trump has contested – Wisconsin and Michigan – and their results technically don't matter anymore.
With Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia all giving their votes to Mr Biden, he already has enough swing states in his column to win.
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