Today, in a series of cer­e­monies at Amer­i­ca’s state­hous­es, the 2020 Elec­toral Col­lege award­ed a major­i­ty of the nation’s elec­toral votes to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et of Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris, affirm­ing that they will be the next Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, begin­ning Jan­u­ary 20th, 2021.

“Alto­geth­er, Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Har­ris and I earned three hun­dred and six elec­toral votes — well exceed­ing the two hun­dred and sev­en­ty elec­toral votes need­ed to secure vic­to­ry,” said Pres­i­dent-elect Biden in a speech fol­low­ing the cer­e­monies, adding: “Three hun­dred and six elec­toral votes is the same num­ber of elec­toral votes Don­ald Trump and Mike Pence received in 2016.”

“At that time, Pres­i­dent Trump called his Elec­toral Col­lege tal­ly a land­slide. By his own stan­dards, these num­bers rep­re­sent­ed a clear vic­to­ry then.”

“And I respect­ful­ly sug­gest they do so now.”

“The elec­tion is over, the votes have been count­ed, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple have spo­ken: Joe Biden will be the forty-sixth Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair Tom Perez. “This is not an opin­ion. It is not a par­ti­san state­ment. It is a fact. That’s why the Elec­toral Col­lege just cer­ti­fied this deci­sion, and why Don­ald Trump needs to accept it.”

“An incred­i­ble coali­tion of Amer­i­cans endorsed Joe Biden, Kamala Har­ris, and their mes­sage. This is the first tick­et in his­to­ry to earn over eighty mil­lion votes.”

“Vot­ers of dif­fer­ent back­grounds and life expe­ri­ences came togeth­er around our shared val­ues of inclu­sion and oppor­tu­ni­ty for all.”

“Using their voice and their vote, they chose to put our nation on a new path, one defined by hope, integri­ty, and dig­ni­ty. Joe and Kamala embody that vision of Amer­i­ca, and their lead­er­ship will move our nation forward.”

An Elec­toral Col­lege Primer from The Green Papers

The Elec­tors meet with­in their respec­tive States or D.C. (again, there is no all-up meet­ing of the entire “Elec­toral Col­lege”– each such Elec­tor meet­ing is, in effect, one of fifty-one sep­a­rate meet­ings of fifty-one dif­fer­ent “Elec­toral College“s [one for each of the fifty States plus D.C.]), with each Elec­tor in atten­dance cast­ing one “Elec­toral Vote” for, sep­a­rate­ly, Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

No pro­vi­sion of the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion or fed­er­al law requires elec­tors to vote in accor­dance with the pop­u­lar vote in their respec­tive juris­dic­tions from which they have been “appoint­ed” in the gen­er­al elec­tion; how­ev­er, state law or state par­ty rules (where these are autho­rized by state law to do so) might (or, for that mat­ter, might not!) require that state’s elec­tors to cast their elec­toral votes for the presidential/vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to which they have been “pledged” via the results of the pop­u­lar vote in that state cast dur­ing the gen­er­al election.

The elec­tors record their votes on six Cer­tifi­cates of Vote and six Cer­tifi­cates of Ascer­tain­ment (three Cer­tifi­cates of each type for each of the two high Offices for whom the elec­tors are vot­ing) and then sign, seal, and cer­ti­fy each set. One set for each high Office is sent to the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate (cur­rent­ly Vice Pres­i­dent Michael R. Pence), while two sets for each high Office are sent to the Archivist.

The Fed­er­al Reg­is­ter pre­serves one archival set for each high office and holds the oth­er set aside, sub­ject to the pos­si­ble call of the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate (again, in the case of the 2020 Elec­tion, Vice Pres­i­dent Pence) to replace poten­tial­ly miss­ing or incom­plete Elec­toral Vote cer­ti­fi­ca­tions among oth­er sets of Certificates.

Most states’ elec­tors met in per­son despite the pan­dem­ic. Mask wear­ing was gen­er­al­ly required, and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols were observed, in part by mov­ing the cer­e­monies to larg­er venues and dis­al­low­ing pub­lic attendance.

Thank­ful­ly, the cer­e­monies all took place peace­ful­ly and with­out inci­dent, though author­i­ties con­tin­ue to inves­ti­gate threats that were pre­vi­ous­ly made by right wing extrem­ists against local and state elec­tions officials.

Biden received the votes of all the states car­ried by Hillary Clin­ton plus Penn­syl­va­nia, Michi­gan, Wis­con­sin, Ari­zona, and Geor­gia, the states that flipped from red to blue and swung the 2020 elec­tion to the Democrats.

Unlike in 2016, there were no faith­less electors.

As men­tioned, Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris received three hun­dred and six votes. Don­ald Trump and Mike Pence received two hun­dred and thir­ty-two votes. No votes were cast for any­one else.

The elec­toral votes cast today will be count­ed and tab­u­lat­ed before a Joint Ses­sion of Con­gress next month, where­upon Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris’ vic­to­ry will be affirmed one more time. Biden and Har­ris will assume their new duties one month and a week from now. Har­ris will resign from the U.S. Sen­ate to assume her new role as Pres­i­dent of that body. Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Gavin New­som is expect­ed to announce his pick to suc­ceed Har­ris very soon.