Electoral college key dates
December
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
States finalize elector appointments
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Electors cast votes in each state
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Vice president receives electoral votes
27
28
29
30
31
January
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
3
1
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
House and Senate count electoral votes
11
12
15
16
13
14
17
24
18
19
20
21
22
23
Presidential
inauguration
25
31
26
27
28
29
30
Electoral college key dates
December
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
States finalize elector appointments
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Electors cast votes in each state
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Vice president receives electoral votes
28
29
30
31
January
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
3
1
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
House and Senate count electoral votes
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
24
18
19
20
21
22
23
Presidential inauguration
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Electoral college key dates
December
January
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
3
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
13
House and Senate count electoral votes
States finalize elector appointments
14
15
16
17
18
19
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
20
Electors cast votes in each state
24
18
19
20
21
22
23
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Presidential inauguration
Vice president receives electoral votes
25
26
27
28
29
30
28
29
30
31
31
President Trump and his allies have tried to undo the results of the 2020 election with falsehoods about voting security, lawsuits and direct pressure on Republican legislators and officials — an effort critics have denounced as an unprecedented subversion of democracy.
One of Trump’s immediate goals was to delay or derail formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key battleground states, either by persuading judges to block the process or compelling officials not to certify results, based on false claims that the election was tainted by massive voter fraud.
[Election results under attack: Here are the facts]
That effort has failed. All six battleground states in which Trump was challenging the results — Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin — have formally certified Biden’s win.
On Nov. 23, Trump relented, authorizing the federal government to begin the transition process to the incoming Biden administration.
But the president and his allies have continued to paint the result of the election as illegitimate, pressuring state lawmakers to appoint alternate electors in the run-up to the electoral college’s formal vote on Dec. 14.
If Biden is officially declared the victor in contested states by Dec. 8, federal law says Congress will presume those results to be conclusive when it comes time to finalize who won. This creates an incentive for states to settle disputes by then, although the deadline is not binding.
Legal experts said the drawn-out calendar of formally electing a president in the United States makes it vulnerable to efforts to disrupt the process.
“It’s one of the really terrible features of the electoral college,” said Paul M. Smith, vice president for litigation and strategy with the Campaign Legal Center. “ … It’s this long, multistate process in which lots of different players can try to play. It’s full of potential for unfortunate interference.”
Georgia
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp certified the statewide election results — including Biden’s win — on Nov 20. Both are Republicans.
[How Georgia became a swing state for the first time in decades]
Recounts and legal challenges
A hand-count audit of all presidential votes confirmed Biden’s lead of more than 12,000 votes. A formal machine recount, which the Trump campaign requested on Nov. 21, confirmed Biden’s win for a third time and Raffensperger recertified the results Dec. 7.
A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Trump’s allies asking the court to decertify Biden’s victory in Georgia, calling the plaintiffs’ request “perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election.”
Reported by Michelle Ye Hee Lee
Michigan
The Michigan Board of Canvassers voted Nov. 23 to certify the state’s election results.
Before that, the president had made a remarkable personal intervention in the state’s vote certification process by calling a member of the Wayne County canvassing board, who subsequently sought to withdraw her vote to certify the tally in her county. He also invited a delegation of GOP state legislators to the White House.
Trump’s allies hoped the two Republicans on the four-member state canvassing board would refuse to certify, a move they argued would have opened the door for the GOP-controlled legislature to get involved. However, state election-law experts said there is no role for the legislature in Michigan’s certification process.
Three out of four board members — including one Republican — voted in favor of certification.
[2020 turnout was the highest in over a century]
Legal challenges
Republicans have failed to gain legal traction in Michigan, where judges have repeatedly noted a lack of evidence for GOP claims of voter fraud and election irregularities. On Nov. 19, the Trump campaign withdrew its most recent federal lawsuit, which sought to delay certification by pointing to alleged wrongdoing in Wayne County, home of Detroit.
On Monday, a federal judge rejected a suit brought by attorney Sidney Powell that sought to decertify Michigan’s election results, based on unproven claims of fraud.
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the Court cannot, and will not, do,” Judge Linda V. Parker wrote.
Reported by Tom Hamburger and David A. Fahrenthold
Wisconsin
On Nov. 30, the chairwoman of the Wisconsin Election Commission, Democrat Ann Jacobs, completed her state’s canvass and declared Biden the winner of the state’s 10 electoral votes, a declaration that was then certified by Gov. Tony Evers (D).
[The 20 most important presidential norms that Trump broke — and how Biden can restore them]
Recount
The Trump campaign requested a recount of the presidential vote in two Democratic-leaning counties. It began on Nov. 20 and concluded Nov. 29, reconfirming that Biden beat Trump, by more than 20,000 votes. The campaign formally appealed this result on Dec. 3.
But the state Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the election results filed by Trump’s campaign, finding that under state law, the campaign should have gone first to a lower-level court. It also declined to hear a lawsuit filed by a conservative group that also sought to invalidate the results.
Reported by Rosalind S. Helderman
Nevada
The seven judges of the Nevada Supreme Court officially accepted the election results on Nov. 24. Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) took the final ministerial step of issuing certificates of election and publicly announcing the winners on Nov. 25.
Legal challenges
The Trump campaign’s formal legal challenge to Nevada’s election results was dismissed with prejudice on Dec. 4, with a state court judge ruling that the campaign failed to prove its claims of voter fraud or offer any basis for annulling more than 1.3 million votes. Judges had already rejected multiple lawsuits filed by Republicans that relied similar claims.
Reported by Emma Brown
Arizona
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) finalized the state’s election results on Nov. 30 in the presence of the governor, the state attorney general and the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, all of whom are Republicans.
Legal challenge
State Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward filed a formal challenge on Nov. 30 to the state’s election results. It was rejected Dec. 4 by a judge in Maricopa County, who ruled that he found “no misconduct, no fraud and no effect on the outcome of the election” when reviewing the case. The state party was expected to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
All other Republican lawsuits alleging problems with the election have been withdrawn or dismissed in the state, though Trump allies have said more challenges could be coming.
Reported by Hannah Knowles and Emma Brown
Pennsylvania
Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar (D) certified Biden’s victory on Nov. 24 after receiving official confirmation of the presidential vote totals from all 67 counties in the state. Gov. Tom Wolf (D) then signed a certificate selecting Biden’s slate of electors, which was submitted to the federal government.
Legal challenges
Since the election, more Republican lawsuits have been filed in Pennsylvania than in any other battleground state. Yet the party has had virtually no success, as judges repeatedly rejected the claims of voter fraud, of GOP election observers being blocked from access and of alleged mishandling of deficient mail ballots in several counties.
The Trump campaign has faced several major defeats in court. On Nov. 21, a federal judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit seeking to block certification of the presidential election. In a scathing opinion, U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann said the campaign used “strained legal arguments without merit” and “speculative accusations” to claim Republican voters were illegally disadvantaged because some Democratic-leaning counties in Pennsylvania allowed voters to fix administrative errors on their mail ballots. On Nov. 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected Trump’s request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certified results, with a Trump-appointed judge writing for a three-member panel that the campaign’s challenge had “no merit.”
The state Supreme Court has also ruled against Trump and his allies. On Nov. 28, it dismissed with prejudice a GOP lawsuit seeking to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes cast by mail in the general election.
Trump allies formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state high court’s rejection of their challenge to Act 77, the 2019 law that established universal mail voting there -- but the court denied that attempt on Dec. 8. Separately, a review of a state Supreme Court decision to uphold an extended receipt deadline for mail ballots is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Reported by Jon Swaine
Federal deadlines
Deadline to resolve elector disputes: Dec. 8 | Electoral-college vote: Dec. 14
The state certification process is just one step in the process of determining an electoral-college winner. Dec. 8 is known as the “safe harbor” deadline, serving as a warning bell for states to resolve disputes over who won. For contested states that produce a settled result by that date, federal law says Congress will consider that result conclusive when it formally tallies votes from presidential electors.
[How the electoral college works]
Reuben Fischer-Baum and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
