On Saturday, November 7th, 2020, the results of the United States Presidential election were called with Joe Biden being named the winner with Kamala Harris as his Vice President. There is still a long road before the inauguration in January of 2021, but a lot has already happened in the few days that have passed since the announcement.
President Trump has refused to concede the election, making claims of voter fraud and intervention from democrats that lead to his apparent defeat. He has claimed, “I have a feeling judges are going to have to rule,”. Here, Trump is alluding to the possibility that the Supreme Court names the next President of the United States if Trump’s lawsuits over voter fraud make it that far in the judicial system. The fear here is that the Supreme Court is currently made up of a majority of conservative judges who seem to lean towards favoring Donald Trump. Therefore, there is the possibility that they will rule that the election was influenced by voter fraud, and will hand Trump victories in states that had gone to Joe Biden during the election, such as Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden received both the popular vote, with over 74 million votes, and the projected electoral college vote, but the fight is not over yet. The electoral college does not vote until December 14, and while it is expected that the electoral college voters will agree with the projected results from their states, they do have the freedom to change their vote, thereby flipping the state and the election as a whole.
In December we will see how the electoral college votes, but that does not guarantee that Trump will agree to a smooth transition of power. There is still the very real possibility that Trump will continue to refuse to concede the election and acknowledge his defeat which would lead to a large amount of turmoil and potential violence in the country.