This year, after the questioning of the electoral process of a sitting president and a candidate for reelection, the vote acquired a special relevance.
After weeks of allegations of fraud by President Donald Trump, opposition candidate Joe Biden won a majority in the Electoral College, the body that formally elects the president in the United States, and exceeded the main institutional requirement to assume the White House in the January 20 next.
One month after each presidential election, the Electoral College formally chooses the next president, according to the indirect system of the United States, an appointment that usually goes unnoticed since, in general, the winner celebrates and the loser grants the same night of the elections. and there is no longer any tension or expectation.
State after state, its voters – elected at the polls on November 3 and by early vote and by mail during the previous weeks and months – were announcing their votes for Biden or Trump, until the former surpassed the majority of 270 to vote. win the Presidential.
The day was quiet, but it was not completely immune to the political tension and fear of an outbreak of violence that marked a large part of the electoral process.
Although the difference in votes is important and the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris formula won more than 7 million more votes than its Republican rivals, in reality, in terms of the indirect system, they only won by a few tens of thousands of votes distributed in just one handful of states.
Given this tight lead, Trump and his Republican allies tried to persuade the Supreme Court last week to review 62 electoral votes for Biden in four states, which could have cast doubt on today’s result, but justices rejected this latest effort. last Friday.
That judicial defeat was the culmination of a long list of rulings against Republicans in all states in the past month that were key to Biden’s victory.
Therefore, with the election of the Electoral College, there is only one step left – a formality, actually, before the inauguration: the joint session of Congress on January 6, in which Vice President Mike Pence, as head of the Senate, repeat the count and formally announce the result.
