Pennsylvania’s presidential electors certify vote for Dem candidates
Once and for all, Pennsylvania’s presidential electors officially delivered the battleground state’s 20 electoral votes to Democrat Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, on Monday in Harrisburg.
The electors — fulfilling their constitutional duty to formally certify the former vice president’s win here — bookended a six- week stretch in which the loser of the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump, unsuccessfully pursued dozens of legal efforts to hold onto power and void results, including in Pennsylvania.
In a socially distanced and masked event in a Harrisburg auditorium, the 20 electors, chosen by Mr. Biden’s campaign and representing
a “who’s who” in the state’s Democratic politics, delivered the Scranton native his popular-vote win.
The electors also helped to hand the reins of the federal response to COVID-19 to a president-elect who said he will prioritize a nationwide response after he moves into the White House.
The Electoral College event reflected that reality, as the electors were spaced out in an otherwise mostly empty auditorium. Speakers wore masks as they advanced the proceedings, and the oath of office — administered by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer — was completed by electors putting their left hands on their own Bibles.
Tasked with taking a vote and then translating it into a formal document to be given to Congress, the electors cast their ballots — dropping them one by one into a box — shortly before 12:45 p.m. Then Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, named the head teller of the meeting, read the results.
“I hope you can see me smiling behind this mask,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Patton Mills from the main podium after the 20 votes for Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris were announced.
Confirmed as the president of the 59th Electoral College meeting in Pennsylvania, Ms. Mills noted that Pennsylvania was the state that put the Democratic ticket over the 270 electoral vote mark when Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump by about 80,000 votes in what was the highest-turnout election in the state’s history.
“As a woman, I could not imagine a more historical moment for me, as well as all the women who come before me,” Ms. Mills told the electors, noting the recent 100year anniversary of women getting the right to vote. “I am honored to be the first woman to preside over the Electoral College in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
State Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, was chosen to serve as the meeting’s vice president by the group of electors, which included Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Allegheny County-based attorney Clifford Levine and Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper.
After they voted for Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, the electors were asked to sign six certificates, which are to be delivered to the president of the U.S. Senate, Vice President Mike Pence.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, the state’s highest-ranking elections official, called the vote “one of the most important items of business in our modern democracy,” and read a quote from former President George H. W. Bush about the “majesty of the democratic system.”
“Your participation today in this Electoral College proves once again the durability of our constitution and the majesty of our democracy,” Ms. Boockvar said.
In interviews with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the lead-up to the meeting, some of the electors, who represent a cross-section of Democratic Party officials and stakeholders, said their sense of duty felt even more urgent given Mr. Trump’s challenges to the outcome of the election.
Republicans in Pennsylvania took one more step on Monday to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results, assembling a conditional group of their own electors in Harrisburg and take a procedural vote for Mr. Trump “to preserve any legal claims that may be presented going forward,” the Pennsylvania chair of the campaign, Bernie Comfort, said in a statement.
“This was in no way an effort to usurp or contest the will of the Pennsylvania voters,” Ms. Comfort said of the meeting, which was held at the request of Mr. Trump’s campaign, according to the state GOP.
Asked on CNN whether there was anything the president’s legal team could do to change the outcome of the election at this point, Mr. Shapiro said, “These 20 electoral votes that were cast today for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will stand, and they will be sworn in as the president and vice president on Jan. 20. Period. End of sentence.”
He continued, “If these enablers want to continue to suck up to the sitting president of the United States to score points, I suppose they can do it — but it will have absolutely no legal effect and no bearing on the outcome.”