Voters cast their ballots for president more than a month ago, but the votes that officially matter will be cast Monday. The Electoral College will meet to cast votes to announce the White House's new president.
The Constitution grants electors the power to elect the President, and when all votes are counted on Monday, President-elect Joe Biden is predicted to have 306 votes cast, more than the 270 votes required to elect the President, with 232 votes cast for President Donald Trump.
The attention on the process is even greater this year as Trump refused to admit the election and proceeded to make accusations of fraud. That makes the meeting of the Electoral College another strong, undeniable step towards the inauguration day of January 20, when Biden will be sworn in as president.
The Electoral College
For more than two decades, the Electoral College has been the target of criticism. One often-repeated grip: the person who wins the popular vote can still lose the presidential election. This has occurred twice in the last two decades—in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected, and in 2016 when Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes.
On his part, Biden secured the popular vote and ended up with 306 votes to 232 for Trump. Trump was the fifth presidential nominee in American history to lose the popular vote yet to win in the Electoral College.
The Electors
Presidential electors are usually elected officials, political hopefuls, or long-standing party loyalists.
This year, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a Trump elector who may be a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, a 2018 governor nominee for her party and a key player in Biden's state victory.
Among others are 93-year-old Paul "Pete" McCloskey, a former Republican Congressman who challenged Richard Nixon for the 1972 GOP presidential nomination on a platform opposing the Vietnam War; Floridian Maximo Alvarez, an immigrant from Cuba who feared in his Republican convention speech that chaos and communism would overtake Biden's America; and Muhammad Abdurrahman, an immigrant from Cuba.
There is no assembly of the Electoral College in one location. Instead the electors of each State and the electors of the District of Columbia meet in a location selected by their legislature, normally the State Capitol.
Electors cast their ballots on paper: one vote for the President and one vote for the Vice-President. The ballots are counted and the electors sign six certificates with the results. Each certificate shall be combined with a certificate from the governor detailing the total votes of the state.
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