At noontime on Monday, December 14, 2020, across our nation in every State Capitol, 50 different slates of Electors, chosen on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, by the popular vote results of each state will meet, in a traditional legislative chamber or hearing room, or their office of Secretary of State, for each of 538 electors to be balloted.
During the November 3 General Election and its aftermath, recounts and certification, President Donald Trump won more states, but President-elect Joe Biden won more votes and more electors, and thus will be declared the winner of the Electoral College and the White House. In one of several ironic coincidences, Mr. Biden will win the Electoral College by the same yuge margin that President Trump won over Hillary Clinton four years prior, though the mix of states are not identical.
Presidential contests are in fact NOT one election. It is 50 contests in 50 states. The Electoral College also provides for the District of Columbia, though those voters have no voting representation in the U.S. Congress. And though despite how things may feel, we are the United States of America, with 50 sovereign states, in many ways more like the sovereign nations within the European Union.
Though President Trump fought a tough campaign, leaving little left on the table at the end, and battles were won, the overall contest, thanks to close victories in several predicted battleground states went in favor of the former Vice-President. The President, his lawyers, campaign team, and supporters took the contest into overtime, concentrating on disputed ballots and perceived election irregularities in four states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. In the prior election cycle in 2016 this President won all four.
This time, following multiple recounts and certifications, the President's lawyers went 0-50 and all of their legal filings, suits requested stays/overturns and throwing out of ballots. Not once per each of the 50 states, but each unsuccessful in every State/Superior, State Supreme and the U.S. Supreme Court.
In that last instance, the State of Texas made a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin elections, based on multiple allegations and unproven theories on thousands of illegally cast ballots. In a less than one page ruling, the Supremes declined to hear the case by a vote of 7-2, stating that Texas lacked the standing to make this request.
This President responded as is his custom, flailing and Tweeting insults and accusations at a Supreme Court containing three of his own nominees and selected justices. In previous statements and Tweets, the President acknowledged that IF the Electoral College names Biden the victor, he will prepare for the transition and moving on.
And yet, it would again appear that a plot is afoot, to rally Republicans in Congress to object to the Electoral College vote totals being certified when Congress meets for that purpose on January 6, 2021.
There is some precedent for this, though the objections rarely affected the certification outcome, since the late 1800s. But this President cares little for precedent, nor apparently even about his own legacy. While presiding over the certification of his own loss, then Vice-President Al Gore rejected the objection of Florida Democrats in Congress during that Congressional certification of the results of the Electoral College, which President-elect George Bush won by two votes.
December 14, 2020 should also be a day of grand celebration for President Trump. His Operation Warp Speed will be delivering millions of vials of vaccine to fight and halt the spread of the novel Corona Virus, in just under 9-months since the declaration of the pandemic.
Trump could be holding a Rose Garden Ceremony, symbolically receiving a dose of that first vaccine, along with Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton who each previously offered to do the same, and Mr. Trump could even invite President-elect Biden and his running mate to come along, each rolling up their sleeve and literally taking one for the team. But not likely with this President.
Real or imagined, much like the thousands of Trump supporters who traveled to Washington, D.C. this weekend and elsewhere, making their voices heard and continuing to squeal about the steal, better to be simply making noise than to be making progress.
Please Mr. President ENOUGH. Tell your supporters thank you, but that the people have spoken, and whether you like it or not, Joe Biden will be our next President. PLEASE sir, for your own good, as well as this nation...give it a rest.
