Pennsylvania certifies Biden as winner of presidential vote
HARRISBURG, Pa. — President-elect Joe Biden has been certified as the winner of the presidential race in Pennsylvania, culminating three weeks of vote-counting and a string of failed legal challenges by President Trump, state officials said Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania State Department “certified the results of the November 3 election in Pennsylvania for president and vice president of the United States,” Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, tweeted.
“As required by federal law, I’ve signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for the slate of electors for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Wolf wrote.
The State Department said Wolf’s “certificate of ascertainment” had been sent to the national archivist in Washington. Pennsylvania’s electors, a mix of elected Democrats, party activists and other staunch Biden backers, will meet in the state Capitol on Dec. 14.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Patton Mills, who will lead the meeting, said she was gratified that Pennsylvania was “the state that made it possible” for Biden to capture the White House.
Biden’s victory in his original home state — he was born in Scranton — gave him its haul of 20 electoral votes, put him over the 270 needed to win the White House and led the Associated Press and other news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, to declare him president-elect four days after election day. Biden has collected 306 overall electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
As President Trump continues to push falsehoods about the election he lost, his legal team has failed to gain any traction in court for its baseless claims of widespread fraud. Here’s a look at where challenges stand in six key states.
The Pennsylvania results show Biden and Harris with 3.46 million votes, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen with 79,000.
Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, in a news release, called the state’s election officials and poll workers “the true heroes of our democracy.”
“We are tremendously grateful to all 67 counties who have been working extremely long hours to ensure that every qualified voter’s vote is counted safely and securely,” Boockvar said.
Trump has made Pennsylvania a centerpiece of his unsuccessful legal attempts to invalidate the election results.
A federal judge Saturday dealt a serious blow to Trump’s legal efforts by dismissing a lawsuit that he said lacked evidence and offered “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”
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