By Olatunde Dodondawa
Joe Biden was formally elected as the next president of the United States by members of the Electoral College on Monday, all but ending Donald Trump’s unprecedented bid to subvert the will of millions of Americans and overturn the results of the presidential election.
With California’s 55 electoral votes, Biden crossed the 270-vote threshold needed to win the White House, a milestone that moves him one procedural step closer to his inauguration on 20 January despite Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat and concede the race.
The president-elect addressed the electoral college vote count in a speech to the nation on Monday night, capping a day marked by heightened security, some political theater and an unusual level of public interest in the constitutionally-mandated affair.
“In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed,” Biden said, according to excerpts released by his transition team. “We the people voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact. And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal.”
“Together, vice-president-elect Harris and I earned 306 electoral votes,” Biden said, speaking from Wilmington, Delaware, noting that he has won by the same margin as Donald Trump in 2016. Trump called that a “landslide”, Biden remarked.
“Nothing, not even a pandemic, or an abuse of power can extinguish that flame” of American democracy, Biden added, highlighting the contributions of election officials in carrying out their duty amid the pandemic, even amid threats and verbal abuse from detractors and Trump supporters. “We owe these public servants a debt of gratitude,” Biden continued. “Our democracy survived because of them.”
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