In Washington
The 538 voters in the electoral college voted this Monday, December 14 in the fifty American states and the District of Columbia to formalize the election of Joe Biden.
This vote, usually a mere formality, has taken on particular importance this year.
He was to put an end to Donald Trump's attempts to change the outcome of the November 3 ballot, and confirm, once and for all, Joe Biden's victory.
It was also to be the penultimate episode of a political soap opera that kept the United States (and part of the world) in suspense for long weeks, and will end on January 6 with the count and certification. of these votes before both houses of Congress.
This date may still be an opportunity for Trump and his allies to make a little noise and loudly contest Biden's victory, but their obstruction can no longer have legal consequences.
Fear of violent protests
Another sign of the unusual atmosphere that reigns in the United States after several weeks of post-election contests, several states have taken additional security measures around the vote, for fear of violent protests.
Michigan has banned access to official buildings.
The precautions necessary due to the Covid-19 pandemic have added some logistical complexities.
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But the result of the vote was certain.
The possibility that some major voters do not respect the popular vote, regulated by about thirty states, did not weigh on the outcome of the poll either.
Inherited from the founding of the United States, the curious Electoral College system once again worked, more than two centuries after its inception.
Like the rest of the American electoral rules, often rather vague, largely delegated to the States of the Union, and based on a good number of uses, it has also shown its resilience.
Democrats readily denounce this indirect election of president as a holdover from the past, along with a provision adopted at the time to address the issue of balance with slave states.
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The fact that two Republicans, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, have in recent decades won the election through this system when they lost the popular vote, makes the electoral college even more unbearable for them.
Forgetting that they had barely four years ago incited a dozen major voters not to vote for Donald Trump, whose victory they denounced as illegitimate, the Democrats however saw this time these rules play in their favor, by guaranteeing the election of Joe Biden.
The very complexity of the electoral system and the weight of American political traditions have contributed to the solidity of the edifice in the face of pressure from the top of the executive.
Just as the judges appointed by Trump, conservatives and followers of a literal reading of the Constitution, opposed their legalism to the requests of the president who had appointed them, the rules and practices of an old democracy have shown their usefulness to their critics. the most virulent.