In 50 state capitals and D.C., the Electoral College met today (Monday, December 14) to cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States. According to the certified election results, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are to receive 306 electoral votes to 232 for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. As of this writing, no “faithless” electors had yet thrown a wrench in the expected outcome. North Carolina cast its 15 electoral votes for President Trump, whose 1.3-point margin was the closest of any state he won.
The Biden-Harris ticket was supported by the national League of Conservation Voters and the political action arms of multiple other environmental organizations, which anxiously await the January 20 transition to a new presidential administration and the expected reversal of Trump’s widespread damages to our environment.
However, the Trump campaign and various parties acting at his behest have continued to make baseless, false claims that the election results were tainted by massive fraud and that Trump actually won. This has produced a cascade of frivolous, losing legal challenges to the results in four swing states won by the Biden ticket. The Biden-Harris ticket’s combined margin of victory in those states was approximately 300,000 votes; they won the national popular vote by more than seven million.
In the latest and most astounding challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to invalidate the results in those four states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia) late Friday. The court declared in a brief unsigned order, “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.” Paxton challenged these states’ election process changes, calling them unconstitutional because they had not been approved by those states’ legislatures. Despite that claim, his lawsuit failed to challenge the results of other states won by Trump where the pandemic had resulted in similar lawful executive- or court-ordered changes — including Texas itself.
The attorneys general of 17 Republican-led states filed briefs supporting Texas’ case, while the attorneys general of 20 states (including North Carolina) asked the Supreme Court to reject Texas’ petition. In his statement on joining that response, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said, “Today, I joined 22 other attorneys general in filing a brief with the United States Supreme Court opposing Texas’ radical, anti-democratic lawsuit. This suit seeks to overturn the will of the people by throwing out the votes of tens of millions of Americans. Court after court has determined that its factual allegations are false. The complaint asks the Supreme Court to simply ignore the voters in several states and order legislators in those states to replace the voters’ choice with their own. This represents a profound and outrageous rejection of democracy with no precedent in our nation’s history. It would also violate some of our nation’s most basic constitutional principles, including federalism and respect for state law. It frankly saddens me that our amicus brief is even necessary, but know that I will do whatever is necessary to protect people’s right to vote.”
At no time since 1860 has the presidential election been contested past the electoral college vote. At present, however, President Trump still continues to falsely assert that he won the election. At his urging, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives have announced they will seek to challenge the results during the routinely ceremonial congressional counting of the electoral college ballots, which takes place January 6. Unless they reverse course, the political melodrama over the presidential transition may drag on until that date.
