Joe Biden Is Not Officially President Elect

No matter what some news outlets are “Reporting” Biden is not officially the president-elect until each state formally certifies its results, which occurs on a different timeline in each state, and electors for those states gather and vote in mid-December.

In the United States, Americans don’t directly elect the president. And contrary to popular belief, there is no constitutional right to vote for president.

In the United States, Americans don’t directly elect the president. And contrary to popular belief, there is no constitutional right to vote for president.

Instead, states appoint a number of electors equal to the number of representatives they have in Congress to the electoral college, a system that was devised in the 18th century by the founders of the United States.

All states except for Maine and Nebraska use a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the most votes earns all of the state’s electoral college votes.

This system has resulted in some presidential elections — like the ones in 2000 and 2016 — in which the winner of the national popular vote loses the electoral college.

States must appoint their electors to the electoral college on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November under a federal law passed by Congress in 1845.

All states hold popular elections to determine how their electoral college votes will be allocated, but they aren’t required to do so by the constitution or by federal law.

On December 8th, six days before the electoral colleges convene to vote is the “safe harbor” deadline. While states aren’t legally required to certify their results by this date, if they so do, they can avoid Congress getting involved and resolving a potential dispute over which candidate won a particular state’s electoral college votes.

On December 14th, the second Monday after the second Wednesday in December, slates of electors selected by voters convene in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to formally cast their votes for president and vice president.

January 6, 2021 at 1 p.m. The vote count is finalized at the results are certified.

The sitting Vice President, acting as the Senate president, presides over a joint session of Congress to read aloud the certificates cast by the electors representing all 50 states and D.C. in alphabetical order to finalize the vote count.

If no members of Congress object to any of the certificates in writing, the Senate president officially certifies the selection of the president-elect and vice president-elect.