By Aiyeku Timothy
Joe Biden has been confirmed as the President-elect of the United Stated after votes cast by the Electoral College gave him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris a clear majority of electors.
President Trump’s attempt to mount pressure on Republicans to acknowledge his claim for the election results to be cancelled failed as electoral college went ahead to confirm Joe Bide.
Electors met in a statehouse chamber in New Hampshire and the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania had backed Joe Biden.
At the time California cast its 55 votes for Biden, it had pushed him past the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College and a majority of 270 is required to win. Biden won a total of 306 electoral votes while Trump won 232.
In his reaction to the win, Biden said “The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know that nothing – not even the pandemic – or an abuse of power – can extinguish that flame,”
He therefore, called for unity as he rebuked Trump and his ally for their assault on the nation’s voting system.
In an address in Wilmington, Del., on Monday night, he said the Republican efforts to get the Supreme Court to undo the result represented a “position so extreme we’ve never seen it before,” and called the attacks on election officials at the local level “unconscionable.”
Biden added that “it is time to turn the page” on the election. Praising officials who stood up for the integrity of the system, he added: “It was honest, it was free and it was fair. They saw it with their own eyes. And they wouldn’t be bullied into saying anything different.”
