US Congress to officially approve presidential poll results only in Jan 2021

Even if the TV networks announce the results of the United States presidential elections within the next few hours, it will in fact get the official approval only on January 6, 2021 – 14 days before President Donald Trump will either start his second term in office or leave the White House after witnessing his rival Joe Biden taking the oath.

The US Senate and House of Representatives will have a joint session on January 6 to count the votes cast by the electors of the states. It will be presided over by Vice President Mike Pence in the capacity of President of the Senate, the upper House in the US Congress. If no one objects to the votes cast by the electors, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates winning at least 270 electoral votes – the majority mark in the 538-member electoral college – will be declared the winners.

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But if no one emerges as the clear winner, the election for the US President and Vice President would be decided by the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively in run-off contingent elections.

But before both the houses of the US Congress will hold the joint session of both Houses of the US Congress, the states will have to first meet what is called the “Safe Harbour Deadline” – six days before the date set for the electors of the respective states to meet and vote.

“The Safe Harbor Deadline is established basically to provide a window before the electors go to their state capitals,” says Meena Bose, Executive Dean of Public Policy and Public Service Programs and Director of the Center for Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University in New York.

“The electoral college never meets as a body together, they meet in their (respective) state capitals. And, the idea of the safe harbour deadline is for the states to complete their vote counting and identify their electors, and then their electors are supposed to travel in person to their state capitals to cast their ballots,” she adds, during a virtual briefing held on the presidential elections held by the US State Department for foreign journalists.

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The US Code (3 U.S.C. §5) provides that if election results are contested in any state, and if the state, prior to election day, has enacted procedures to settle controversies or contests over electors and electoral votes, and if these procedures have been applied, and the results have been determined six days before the electors’ meetings, then these results are considered to be conclusive, and will apply in the counting of the electoral votes.

This date, known as the “Safe Harbor” deadline, falls on December 8 in 2020. The governor of any state where there was a contest, and in which the contest was decided according to established state procedures, is required (3 U.S.C. §6) to send a certificate describing the form and manner by which the determination was made to the US Archivist as soon as practicable, according to a note released by the Congressional Research Service on October 22.

The date for the meeting of the electors is set as Monday after the second Wednesday of the month of December in a presidential election year – December 14 in case of this year.

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The Electoral College delegations meet separately in their respective states and the District of Columbia at places designated by their state legislature.

The electors vote by paper ballot, casting one ballot for President and one for Vice President. The electors count the results and then sign six Certificates of the Vote, each of which contains two lists, one of which includes the electoral votes for the President, the other, electoral votes for the Vice President, each of which includes the names of persons receiving votes and the number of votes cast for them.

They then pair the six Certificates of Ascertainment provided by the state governors with the Certificates of the Vote, and sign, seal, and certify them (3 U.S.C. §§8-10).

The six certificates are then distributed by registered mail – one certificate to the President of the US Senate (the Vice President), two certificates to the secretary of state (or equivalent officer) of the state in which the electors met, two certificates to the Archivist and one certificate to the judge of the US district court of the district in which the electors met. The certificates must be delivered by the fourth Wednesday of December, by December 23 in 2020, according to the Congressional Research Service.

When both the Houses of the US Congress will hold the joint session on January 6 to count the electoral votes and declare the results, Vice President Mike Pence, who is also the President of the Senate, will open the certificates and present them to four tellers, two from each chamber.

The tellers will read and make a list of the returns. When the votes will be ascertained and counted, they will transmit them to the Vice President. If it is found that one of the tickets has received a majority of 270 or more electoral votes, Pence will announce the results, which “shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President.”

The Senators and Representatives may object to the returns from any individual state as they are announced. The joint session will then go for a recess and the two houses will separately debate the question in their respective chambers for a maximum of two hours.

The two houses will then then vote separately to accept or reject the objection. They then reassemble in a joint session, and announce the results of their respective votes. An objection to a state’s electoral vote must be approved by both houses for any contested votes to be excluded.

If no candidate wins an absolute majority of votes in the Electoral College, the US House of Representatives and the Senate will hold the contingent election to the office of President and Vice President respectively. When a contingent election takes place in the House of Representatives, each state's delegation casts one en bloc vote to elect the President, instead of each Representative casting a vote. The Senators, however, casts votes individually to elect the Vice President, explains Bose.