Wisconsin and Arizona certify Biden wins in presidential vote

Two battleground states, Wisconsin and Arizona, certified their presidential election results yesterday in favour of Joe Biden, even as President Donald Trump’s legal team continued to dispute the results.

Biden’s victory in Wisconsin was certified following a partial recount that only added to his 20,600-vote margin over Trump, who has promised to file a lawsuit seeking to undo the results.

Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, signed a certificate that completed the process after the canvass report showing Biden as the winner following the recount was approved by the chairwoman of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. Evers’ signature was required by law and is typically a procedural step that receives little attention.

The action now starts a five-day deadline for Trump to file a lawsuit, which he promised would come no later than today. Trump is mounting a longshot attempt to overturn the results by disqualifying as many as 238,000 ballots by claiming there was widespread fraud and illegal activity.

Even if Trump were successful in Wisconsin, the state’s 10 Electoral College votes would not be enough to undo Biden’s overall victory as states around the country certify results.

Earlier yesterday, Arizona officials certified Biden’s narrow victory in that state.

Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Republican Governor Doug Ducey both vouched for the integrity of the election before signing off on the results. “We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong,” Ducey said.

Even as Hobbs, Ducey, the state attorney general and chief justice of the state Supreme Court certified the election results, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis met in a Phoenix hotel ballroom a few miles away to lay out claims of irregularities in the vote count in Arizona and elsewhere. They did not provide any evidence.