What’s vote certification? Process in spotlight amid unfounded election fraud claims
Vote certification, a typically mundane part of the elections process, has recently drawn increased attention in the aftermath of this year’s presidential race.
President Donald Trump and his allies have targeted the process in some key battleground states as part of their baseless attempts to challenge the outcome of the 2020 election and push unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
The Associated Press and other media outlets projected now President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the election on Nov. 7. Biden has 290 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232, according to the AP, with Georgia yet to be called. But Trump has refused to concede or allow the transition process to move forward.
Now, officials in some states are still working to certify the results while facing attempts to stall the process.
What is voter certification?
It’s the process of officially verifying the results of an election.
The results available on election night — or a few days after in this year’s case — are considered preliminary until they’re certified, which typically takes elections officials up to a month, according to Ballotpedia.
It’s standard for the media to call races ahead of the certified results, and major outlets have done so since 1848 when The AP declared Zachary Taylor the next president. The media’s role in projecting outcomes started “mostly because Americans didn’t want to wait to find out the results,” the AP reports.
Elections officials prioritize counting “regular” ballots on election night, when unofficial results are released as they become available, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But the job isn’t done once those are counted.
“Even if 100 percent of election precincts are reporting, there can still be ballots from these precincts that have not been counted, due to certain circumstances, such as absentee ballots being delayed or complications that require recounts,” Ballotpedia says.
Local elections officials turn to those ballots after “regular” ones are counted and canvass the vote, meaning they prepare the results for the state, according to the NCSL. A “statewide entity” then certifies the results.
“Once election results are certified, the effects — either the approval or rejection of candidates or measures — can take place because all the ballots that are going to be counted have been,” Ballotpedia says.
What happens next?
Elections results must be certified in all states by Dec. 8.
That date marks the “safe harbor deadline” when challenges over electors and electoral votes in each state must be settled.
The Electoral College, chosen by the popular vote winner in each state, then votes on Dec. 14, and on Jan. 6, Congress counts the Electoral College votes and declares an official winner when a presidential ticket wins 270 or more votes. The incumbent vice president announces the winner.
The president-elect is then sworn in on Jan. 20, the set Inauguration Day under the Constitution.
Targeting vote certification
Trump and his campaign have attempted to overturn or challenge Biden’s projected victory in multiple battleground states with lawsuits that have largely been unsuccessful in court.
Now, the effort has shifted toward the vote certification process in battleground states, the AP reports.
In Arizona, which has a Nov. 30 deadline to certify its results, the state Republican Party has asked a judge to block officials in Maricopa County — which put Biden “over the top” to win the state — from certifying the results until a decision is reached on a pending lawsuit, the AP reports.
In Michigan, also projected for Biden, Republican members of the Board of Canvassers in Wayne County — which includes the Democratic stronghold of Detroit — voted against certifying the county’s election results, then voted in favor of certification before finally asking to rescind their votes and block the process, The Hill reports.
But Tracy Wimmer, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s spokesperson, told The Detroit News “there is no legal mechanism for them to rescind their vote.”
Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, told the AP that there is “no precedent” for the widespread effort to block certification efforts.
“It would be the end of democracy as we know it,” Douglas said. “This is just not a thing that can happen.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 8:31 AM with the headline "What’s vote certification? Process in spotlight amid unfounded election fraud claims."
