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Election day is over, but the legal mechanisms leading from Election Day to Inauguration Day are just beginning.
Americans who went to the polls on polling day did not choose the president directly. They were technically voting for 538 voters who, under the system established by the Constitution, will meet in their respective states and vote for the president and vice president once the popular vote total is fully counted and certified.
These voters are collectively referred to as the Electoral College, and their votes are then passed to the Speaker of the Senate, who counts them in a joint session of Congress after the New Year.
Here is a timeline what happens before the opening day and key dates to watch out for:
Mail-in ballots were required to be postmarked by November 3 in all states in the United States, but they can be received late and still counted in many states. In most cases, they had to be received within a day or two of polling day. But in Washington state, postal ballots could be received as late as November 23.
Each state does it a little differently, but as of a week after polling day, state governments began to certify their election results. These times may change in the event of a state recount if there is an extremely close result.
Under the Election Count Act, this is the date when states are expected to count votes, settle disputes, and determine the winner of their Electoral College votes. Governors are supposed to create verification certificates listing the winner of the election and the voters list.
In 2000, the Supreme Court ended a targeted recount in Florida because it could not be completed by that safe date. This recount would not have changed the election result, but a full statewide recount could have made Al Gore president. This is when it could become very important for Republicans to control more state legislatures than Democrats, including in most of the contested battlefield states of 2020.
In law, this date is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year, it falls on December 14. Six days after disputes are supposed to be settled, voters are expected to meet in their respective states and vote for the US president. They certify six rounds of votes and send them to Washington. Many states have laws requiring their voters to support the winner of their state’s election, and may impose fines on unfaithful voters who go their own way.
Certified electoral votes have nine days to move from their states to Capitol Hill.
Members of the House and new members of the Senate take the oath at noon. This is the official start of the 117th Congress.
Members of the House and Senate all meet in the Chamber of the House. The President of the Senate (i.e. Vice President Mike Pence) presides over the session and the electoral votes are read and counted in alphabetical order by two nominees each from the House and the Senate. They then deliver their accounts to Pence, who announces the results and listens to objections.
If there are objections or if there are, in one way or another, several voters lists presented by a state, the House and the Senate examine them separately to decide how to count those votes.
There are 538 electoral votes – one for each member of Congress and Senator plus three for Washington, DC. If no candidate obtains 270, the 435 members of the House decide on the election. Each state gets a vote.
Although there are more Democrats in the House, Republicans control more state delegations as of now, so it is very possible that the House could choose Donald Trump even if there is a Democratic majority. It takes a majority of state votes to become president. The House has until noon on January 20 to choose the Speaker. If they can’t, it would be the vice president or the next eligible person in the line of presidential succession.
A new president is sworn in at noon. If the elected president dies between polling day and the inauguration, the elected vice president takes the oath and becomes president.
In a contested election, if the House has not chosen a Speaker but the Senate has chosen a Vice-President, the elected Vice-President becomes Acting President until the House makes a choice. And if there is no president-elect and no vice-president elected, the House appoints a president until there is one.
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