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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CBS/AP) — Members of the Electoral College in Illinois cast all 20 of their ballots for Joe Biden for president on Monday in Springfield, as electors across the country are expected to officially declare the winner of the race for president.
“It’s my fervent hope that we are indeed seeing the dawn of a very bright new day,” elector Julia Kennedy Beckman, of Darien, said as she cast her vote.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot presided over the ceremony in the Illinois House chamber.
“The election is affirmed. It is now time for us as a country to move forward, transition in full, and embrace the promise of a new administration …,” Lightfoot said. “Their success is our success, and we need desperately to unite as a people. Our democracy and our residents deserve no less.”
The electors, meeting in the Illinois House chamber while observing social-distance rules because of the COVID-19 pandemic, also chose Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, as vice president. She is the first woman and first person of color to be elected vice president.
Biden won 57.5% of the Illinois vote to 40.6% for President Donald Trump.
President Trump has refused to concede the election and his last-ditch legal attempts to overturn the results have been quashed in the courts. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to stop electors in four key battleground states from voting Monday.
President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to give a speech Monday night after all the electors have voted. California is expected to be the state that will push Mr. Biden past 270 votes.
There are 538 electors. The number from each state is based on population and is equal to the number of members of Congress the state has, in the House and Senate, meaning the minimum any state can have is three. The state with the most electors is California, which has 55. Washington D.C. has three electors even though it is not a state.
All but two states, Maine and Nebraska, give all their Electoral College votes to the candidate who got the most votes in the state. Maine awards two of its four electoral votes to the statewide winner but also allocates an electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of its two congressional districts. Nebraska gives two of its five electoral votes to the statewide winner, with the remaining three going to the popular vote winner in each of its three congressional districts.
Three hundred and six electors will vote for Mr. Biden and 232 will vote for Mr. Trump.
Federal law dictates the electors meet on the Monday in December that follows the second Wednesday, which in 2020 falls on December 14.
The electors will cast ballots, individually and on paper, for president and vice president. The electors count the votes and then sign six certificates, known as the Certificates of the Vote. The certificates are paired with the Certificates of Ascertainment provided by states’ governors and are signed, sealed and certified.
The six copies are then sent via registered mail to the president of the Senate (aka Vice President Mike Pence); two are sent to the secretary of state of the state in which the electors met; two are sent to the archivist and one is sent to judge of the U.S. district court of the district in which the electors met.
The votes will take place at different times, starting at 10 a.m. ET and concluding with Hawaii at 7 p.m. ET. In Michigan, state House and Senate offices are closed because of “credible threats of violence” — not because of “anticipated protests” — and as a result, electors will have police escorts from their cars to the capitol building, according to a spokesperson for state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey. Michigan’s Electoral College members are scheduled to vote at 2 p.m. ET.
The electors are not necessarily bound by law to vote according to the state’s results, and there were 10 “faithless electors” in 2016. But most states have laws that nullify the votes of “faithless electors,” and the Supreme Court ruled in July that states can punish them. FairVote found that since the founding of the Electoral College, there have been 167 faithless electors.
It is possible for Congress to challenge the results in a state that did not meet the December 8 “safe harbor” deadline. The U.S. Code says that if any state has enacted procedures to settle any controversies over electors before Election Day and if the results have been determined six days before the electors meet, they qualify for “safe harbor.” Congress is required to consider those results as “conclusive.” This date is known as the “Safe Harbor” deadline.
Congressman Mo Brooks, of Alabama, has said that he plans to challenge electoral votes for Mr. Biden when Congress reconvenes on January 6. He would need to be joined by one senator and present his objection in writing, and then both houses of Congress would debate the objections and vote on whether to sustain them, according to The Associated Press.
In a statement last week, attorneys for the Trump campaign quoted the dissenting opinion in the 2000 Supreme Court Bush v. Gore ruling that January 6 is the date of “ultimate significance.”
“Despite the media trying desperately to proclaim that the fight is over, we will continue to champion election integrity until legal vote is counted fairly and accurately,” attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said.
What are the next major dates?
December 23: All copies of the electors’ votes must be delivered to the recipients.
January 6: Congress will count the votes of the electors. Procedure calls for Pence to open each state’s “certificate of ascertainment” — documents prepared by the state after it has completed its vote count and ascertained the official results. He will then present the certificate to four “tellers” who announce result tallies. Once a candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes, Pence will declare the winner.
January 20: Mr. Biden will be inaugurated.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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