Washington, Dec 15: It is time to “unite, heal and turn the page” on the US election, President-elect Joe Biden told Americans, hours after the Electoral College affirmed his victory over Republican President Donald Trump, who has refused to concede his loss and filed a litany of legal challenges to overturn the poll results.
The members of the 538-member Electoral College on Monday pushed Biden past the 270-vote threshold to win the race for the White House, one of the final steps required for the 78-year-old Democrat to take office in January next year.
Under the US system, voters actually cast their ballots for electors, who in turn, formally vote for candidates weeks after the election.
In a speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware after the announcement of his victory in the November 3 presidential election, Biden said the US democracy had been “pushed, tested and threatened” and “proved to be resilient, true and strong”. He said “the rule of law, our Constitution and the will of the people prevailed” over Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the election.
“The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish that flame,” Biden said.
“In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. We the people voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact. And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal,” he said.
Biden said it should be celebrated, not attacked, that more than 81 million votes were cast for him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. This too is a record number. More votes than any ticket has received in the history of America. It represented a winning margin of more than 7 million votes over the number of votes cast for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, he said.
“Altogether, Vice President-elect Harris and I earned 306 electoral votes — well exceeding the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory. 306 electoral votes is the same number of electoral votes Donald Trump and Mike Pence received in 2016. At that time, President Trump called his Electoral College tally a landslide. By his own standards, these numbers represented a clear victory then,” Biden said.
“And I respectfully suggest they do so now. If anyone didn’t know it before, they know it now,” Biden said as he referred to the allegations of voter fraud by Trump, which were dismissed by the US courts. (PTI)
