Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: The Electoral College declared Joe Biden as the winner of U.S. election while President Donald Trump yet to concede his lost. Biden secures 306 electoral votes from presidential electors and his disputed rival Trump was only able to receive 232 votes.
Heightened security was in place in some states as electors met to cast paper ballots, with masks, social distancing and other pandemic precautions the order of the day. 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.
For all Trump’s unsupported claims of fraud, there was little suspense and no change as every one of the electoral votes allocated to Biden and the president in last month’s popular vote went officially to each man. On Election Day, the Democrat topped the incumbent Republican by more than 7 million in the popular vote nationwide.
California’s 55 electoral votes put Biden over the top. Vermont, with 3 votes, was the first state to report. Hawaii, with 4 votes, was the last.
In an evening speech to the American nation, Biden said, “once again in America, the rule of law, our Constitution, and the will of the people have prevailed.”
Throughout his speech, he cited the size of his win and the record of 81 million people who voted for him.
But there was no concession from the White House, where Trump has continued to make unsupported allegations of fraud.
However after some hours late in the day, Trump in a tweet announced that Attorney General William Barr would leave the office before Christmas. Barr’s departure comes amid lingering tension over Trump’s unsupported fraud claims, especially after Barr’s statement this month to The Associated Press that the election results were unaffected by any fraud.
