By The Electoral College of the United States, on Monday, cast votes, which according to reports confirm Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the next President and Vice President respectively, though not the final step in the constitutional process of a selecting a president.
President-elect Joe Biden claimed victory after key battleground states gave him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris a clear majority of electors.
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College and a majority of 270 is required to win. Biden overwhelming won in California, the largest US state, as its 55 electoral votes went for the Democrats. The Pacific island state of Hawaii was the last to cast its votes, bringing Biden’s total to 306 electoral votes, against Trump’s 232.
All of the election’s most closely contested battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia cast their votes for Biden.
Prior to the election, slates of electors are chosen by candidates and their parties within each state. When US citizens vote, they actually cast ballots to elect a slate of electors for their preferred candidate, not the candidates themselves.
Those electors are often lesser-known party loyalists, but in some cases, they are well-known, as in the case of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served as Biden electors in New York state.
