US ELECTION UPDATE

On the 20th of Novemver 2020, President Trump met with top GOP lawmakers from Michigan in a bid to overturn that state’s election results after Biden won the election with more than 150,000 votes. After the meeting, the republican state lawmakers stated that they were not "made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan". A state GOP leader told NBC News before the meeting that Shirkey and Chatfield expected Trump to pressure them to overturn the election results based on unproven claims of fraud and irregularities in Detroit. They were prepared to tell him that while they will pursue probes into “irregularities and potential fraud to avoid future situations,” they would uphold Michigan law, which calls for the winner of the vote to get the state's 16 electors.

Bob Bauer, Biden's campaign legal adviser said, "No state legislature in our country's history ever has done what Donald Trump is apparently agitating for the Michigan State Legislature to do, which is to ignore the results of a popular vote election and wrest control from the voters."

As at 15:58 GMT 14th December 2020, the US Electoral College is currently meeting in states across the country to cast its votes on behalf of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to choose the next president, formally confirming Joe Biden as president-elect. Electors, who are often nominated by the majority party of the state to pledge support to the nominee, have confirmed the state’s results in every US presidential election since the first in 1789.

The event comes more than a month after President-elect Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 US election, when he won 306 electoral votes compared to President Donald Trump’s 232.

- EZIMORA BENITA