Monday essentially will be the real presidential Election Day, or is scheduled to be, as electors gather in their respective state capitols to cast votes.
When voters pick their candidate for president on Election Day every four years, as well as in early and mail-in voting this year, they actually choose a slate of electors associated with a candidate.
Each of those electors later casts his or her vote for president on behalf of the state and according to its election results.
In past presidential election years, the day the Electoral College convenes to vote goes largely ignored, as most of the public stops paying attention after Election Day.
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This year is different. Amid allegations of voter fraud, litigation in key states, and state legislative hearings, the public is more focused on the electors’ voting set for Monday.
In 2016, some Democrats attempted to raise the prospect of a Electoral College revolt to overturn the state results in the presidential election, but the haphazard effort was unsuccessful.
Major media outlets projected beginning Nov. 7 that former Vice President Joe Biden won the election by 306 electoral votes to President Donald Trump’s 232 electoral votes, with 270 needed to win. Trump hasn’t conceded, but has said he would do so if the Electoral College votes for Biden.
Here are seven things to know before the Electoral College meets, what’s different about this year, and what past controversies looked like.
1. Is Electoral College Sure to Vote Dec. 14?
It’s likely but not certain that electors will meet in each state Monday, as is the custom, to cast votes for president and vice president.
“Yes, there is time [to pursue legal issues],” Trump campaign lawyer Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said at a virtual press conference Tuesday, the deadline for states to certify electors.
DiGenova said that Dec. 14 is “not set in constitutional stone,” but “statutory stone,” adding:
They can be bent because if the Supreme Court were to find that there was fraud, that there were illegal ballots, that states violated their own constitutions allowing mail-in ballots, and the court were to nullify those votes, it could take enough time to have an oral argument in those matters and could issue an order saying the Electoral College would be postponed for a week or so. There is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent them from doing that. The dates for the Electoral College are not in the Constitution.
Texas sued Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan on Tuesday, alleging the four states imposed unconstitutional election rules and asking the high court to order them to conduct new elections. On Friday evening, however, the Supreme Court rejected the complaint, saying Texas had no legal standing.
All four states had made changes to the election laws without the approval of their legislatures, either through the state bureaucracy or state courts.
Should Texas have prevailed, the result would by necessity at least delayed certification of electors from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
2. How Does the Electoral College Meet?
Traditionally meeting in their respective state capitols, electors in each state record their vote on six Certificates of Vote. Those will be paired Monday with six Certificates of Ascertainment, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, the agency that coordinates certain Electoral College functions between the states and Congress.
The electors then sign, seal, and certify the electoral votes.
A set of electoral votes consists of one Certificate of Ascertainment and one Certificate of Vote, according to NARA.
The certificates of results from each state are sent to multiple offices: Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate; each state’s secretary of state; the National Archives and Records Administration, and the presiding federal judge in the district where the electors meet.
The votes are provided to the judge as a backup copy to replace the official copy sent to the president of the Senate if votes are lost or destroyed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
After that, all of the total electoral votes, or Certificates of Vote, must reach the president of the Senate and the National Archives and Records Administration no later than nine days after each state’s electors meet. This would be Dec. 23, two days before Christmas.
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