Election 2020 isn’t over yet. Here’s a timeline to get you through the remaining electoral cycle
November 12, 2020 Category: Featured, Purpose, ShortIt may be out of voters’ hands, but this most contentious of elections isn’t over.
We’re not talking about the extraordinary circumstances: the steady stream of lawsuits the Trump campaign has brought in order to contest results it doesn’t like or accept, for example, nor are we referring to the Pennsylvania GOP’s latest efforts to call the Commonwealth’s count into question.
No, we’re talking about the normal electoral process that leads to the January 20 swearing-in of a president and vice president.
The millions of votes cast in PA become 20 electoral votes, to be cast on December 13 by a slate of 20 electors — Republican or Democratic according to which party won the statewide popular vote.
Some of the nominees for electors are private citizens, others are public figures. PA’s Republican nominees for electors, for example, include Thomas Marino, the former U.S. Representative for PA’s 10th (then 12th) District, who was nominated by Trump to become his administration’s “drug czar” but withdrew his name from consideration, and later resigned from Congress. Lou Barletta, the former mayor of Hazleton, and U.S. Representative for PA’s 11th District from 2011 to 2019, who unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr. in 2018, is another.
The Democratic nominees for electors include Philadelphia City Councilperson Cindy Bass, PA Representative for District 181 Malcolm Kenyatta, and PA’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, who has been declared the winner in his 2020 reelection bid.
Here’s where the PA GOP count challenge we mentioned earlier come into play. If the popular vote totals are disputed, and that dispute cannot be resolved by December 8, Congress decides which slate of nominated electors gets to vote for president.
Take a look at the timeline below. then, for the important dates to be aware of in what remains of this electoral cycle.
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Clark Merrefield of Journalist’s Resource contributed to this report. Read his in-depth article The Electoral College: How America picks its president.