Nebraska electors to meet this afternoon as presidential election becomes official

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential electors are meeting across the United States on today to formally choose Joe Biden as the nation’s next president.

Monday is the day set by law for the meeting of the Electoral College. In reality, electors meet in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside.

Governor Pete Ricketts will host Nebraska’s Electoral College meeting in the State Capitol starting at 2:00 p.m. The Cornhusker State is expected to give President Donald Trump four of its electoral votes and one to former Vice President Joe Biden.

The electors’ votes have drawn more attention than usual this year because Trump has refused to concede the election and continued to make claims of election fraud. Trump has filed over 50 lawsuits challenging the results, none of which have moved forward his claims of fraud. 

Biden is planning to address the nation Monday night, after the electors have voted. Trump, meanwhile, is clinging to his claims that he won the election.

Following weeks of Republican legal challenges that were quickly dismissed by judges, Trump and Republican allies tried to persuade the Supreme Court last week to set aside 62 electoral votes for Biden in four states, which might have thrown the outcome into doubt. Nebraska officials signed onto the attempted legal challenge.

The justices rejected that effort on Friday.

Biden won 306 electoral votes to 232 votes for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be elected.

In 32 states and the District of Columbia, laws require electors to vote for the popular-vote winner. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld this arrangement in July.

Electors almost always vote for the state winner anyway because they generally are devoted to their political party. Nebraska’s chosen electors are Republicans Darlene Starman (at-large), Steve Nelson (at-large), George Olmer (1st District) and Teresa Ibach (3rd District), in addition to Democrat Precious McKesson (2nd District).

The voting is decidedly low tech, by paper ballot. Electors cast one vote each for president and vice president.

The Electoral College was the product of compromise during the drafting of the Constitution between those who favored electing the president by popular vote and those who opposed giving the people the power to choose their leader.

Each state gets a number of electors equal to their total number of seats in Congress: two senators plus however many members the state has in the House of Representatives. Washington, D.C., has three votes, under a constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1961. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states award all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state.