Electors for all 50 states and the District of Columbia gathered in their respective capitols on Monday to cast ballots. California’s 55 electors put Joe Biden over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to become president shortly after 5 p.m. ET Monday, affirming Biden’s election as the 46th president of the United States.
The Electoral College vote has taken on newfound significance this year as President Donald Trump and his GOP allies have made unprecedented efforts to subvert the popular will of the voters and overturn Biden’s November victory.
Yet all the battleground states that Trump has sought to overturn — Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin — cast their electoral votes for Biden.
The voting kicked off shortly after 10 a.m. ET with Vermont’s three electors casting the first votes for Biden and continued throughout the day. All of the votes went as expected — no states had any so-called “faithless electors” break from the state’s popular vote.
The Electoral College votes will next be sent to Congress to be counted formally next month. A group of House Republicans have signaled they will object to the results in the key states, but they can do little more than delay the process during the joint session of Congress on January 6.
Biden is scheduled to deliver a speech Monday evening after the Electoral College finishes voting in which he’s expected to say that “democracy prevailed.”
“We the People voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact,” Biden is expected to say, according to excerpts released by the transition team. “And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal.”
