dec 15, 2020 - US electoral college officially confirms Biden victory

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Biden hails democracy and rebukes Trump after electoral college victory.

The president-elect repudiated Donald Trump and said his assault on the democratic process was ‘unconscionable’.

Joe Biden delivered a sharp repudiation of Donald Trump and his weekslong quest to subvert the results of November’s election, declaring that the “will of the people had prevailed” in a speech that came shortly after the electoral college officially confirmed his victory.

It was “time to turn the page” on a presidential election that tested the resilience of American democracy, the president-elect said just moments after Hawaii cast the final four electoral college votes, clearing a milestone that all but ended Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn the results.

Biden hailed the presidential election and its uncharted aftermath as a triumph of American democracy and “one of the most amazing demonstrations of civic duty we’ve ever seen in our country”.

The final tally – 306 to 232 electoral votes – followed a baseless campaign by the president to reverse the results of an election that saw historic turnout despite a pandemic. Trump lost not only in the electoral college but the popular vote, too – by nearly 7m.

Yet for weeks, the president has clung to meritless accusations of voter fraud in a slate of battleground states that delivered the victory to Biden. His refusal to concede has sowed doubt among his supporters about the integrity of the vote and undermined faith in the institutions of American governance.

In a speech delivered from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said “our democracy – pushed, tested, threatened – proved to be resilient, true and strong”.

Biden, who will become the 46th president of the United States when he is sworn in on 20 January, continued: “We the people voted. The integrity of our elections remains intact. And so, now it is time to turn the page, as we’ve done throughout our history – to unite, to heal.” (The Guardian)

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