President Trump's janky legal and political campaign to overturn his loss to President-elect Joe Biden through the courts and state legislatures effectively dies Tuesday, when the "safe harbor" deadline presumptively locks in certified vote counts. As of Monday night, 47 states and the District of Columbia have certified their results, giving Biden electoral votes to spare, according to Reuters' tally. When the Electoral College formally casts ballots on Dec. 14, Biden should have 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.
Under the 1887 Electoral Count Act, each state's slate of electors chosen by the "safe harbor" date "is final and presumptively cannot be challenged in court or in Congress," CNN's Elie Honig explains. "The states are not required to finalize their electoral votes by the safe harbor date — but if they do, those determinations are protected by federal law," so this "should effectively extinguish any dying embers of hope even for the last few remaining election denialists."
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