With a normal year, citizens of the United States would have heard of the presidential election results on the evening of Tuesday, November 3rd. The two candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fought for electoral votes in hopes of winning. 

This battle ended on Monday, December 14th when Biden was declared the next president with 306 electoral votes, defeating Trump’s 232. The Electoral College finalized these results, but are still waiting to send them to Congress to be formally counted. 

Trump has been and will continue to fight these results, accusing some key states of voter fraud. These include the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. The President claimed that thousands of votes were cast in dead people’s names or that ballots were illegally submitted in order to alter the results of the election. 

All 538 Electoral College members met at each state capital on Monday to individually cast ballots for Trump or Biden. The swing states that Trump were filing lawsuits against all sent their ballots to Biden, crushing any last chances of taking it to the Supreme Court. 

When these ballots go to both the House of Representatives and the Senate on January 6, they will be recounted to ensure the votes are valid. While this step is normally not taken, this year is obviously different. 

The votes will be counted in both houses of Congress to avoid bias. The House is majority democratic, while the Senate is republican led. Mike Pence, the current vice president, would be the determining factor in announcing the results. Pence would not be the first vice president to declare the opposite party’s presidential nominee the winner, as Vice President Al Gore had to declare George Bush the president in 2000. 

Biden is only a few steps from presidency, and the recount in Congress will finalize the election results. The 2020 election is still not over yet, but it is slowly coming to an end, making it one of the most historical elections so far.