Tag: Harris

College of Electors Choose Biden-Harris As Next US President & Vice Prtesident

Staff ReporterPolitics USA 0

Over five weeks after the General Election where President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris secured over 80 million votes, defeating incumbent Donald Trump, Biden-Harris secured 306  electoral college votes to officially clinch the presidency, a major milestone that he reached as electors  met in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots, awarding him the state’s electoral college votes at their meetings Monday in every state capital. .

The meeting of electors is the major step in the Electoral College process to affirm the general election results. In the US Presidential Election system, while the voters cast their ballots for president more than a month ago, the electoral college members are required by law to vote for president and vice president on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, which this year was December 14th.

It takes 270 electoral votes of the 538 available to become president. Biden-Harris won 306 Electoral College votes while Trump received 232.

The US Constitution gives the electors the power to choose the president, and when all the votes are counted.  The results will now be sent to Washington, and tallied in a Jan. 6th joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside. On Jan. 20th, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be administered the oath of office by John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

The way in which America formally chooses its president stands in stark contrast to how most of the world’s democracies select leaders. Heads of government are either directly elected by voters or by a parliamentary system in which the party winning the most seats in a national assembly selects the head of state. Complications can arise, such as the need to form coalitions, and, as the age old saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.

The Electoral College has come under  criticism in recent times, as many detractors of the system hope, this is the beginning of the end of a system that twice this century has vaulted the loser of the popular vote to the presidency. This year’s race provides the latest motivation for change to supporters of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It would compel member states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. So far, 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on. Advocates hope, perhaps unrealistically, that it will be in place by the next presidential election, reports suggest.

The spotlight on the Electoral College process has been especially intense this year because President Donald Trump has refused to concede the election and has continued to make baseless allegations of fraud,

This development is a crushing blow to President Trump’s controversial and unprecedented attempts to block Biden’s victory in the Electoral College by filing longshot lawsuits and pressuring lawmakers in battleground states to overturn millions of legal votes.

Biden, Harris Named TIME’s 2020 ‘Person Of The Year’

Staff ReporterPolitics USA, Profile, Women 0

TIME magazine has named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris 2020’s Person of the Year. The two made history this year when they beat Donald Trump in a bitter election that put him in a small club of presidents who served only one term. Harris on that day became the country’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president-elect.

“For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year,” wrote Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan was named Businessperson of the Year. The video chat service spiked in popularity amid a health crisis that forced people to work and learn from home.  In the category of Guardians of the Year, Time named activists Assa Traoré, Porche Bennett-Bey and racial-justice organizers; frontline health workers fighting the pandemic; and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Time magazine’s tradition of singling out an especially influential person started in 1927, launching as Man of the Year. The name was later changed to Person of the Year, which is bestowed on an individual, a group, a movement or an idea that had the most influence in the past year. In 2006, Time named “You” as Person of the Year to recognize the millions of people who contribute to content on the internet. Not everyone who made the cut wielded positive influence. Adolf Hitler, for example, was Man of the Year in 1938. In 2019, Time picked young climate activist, Greta Thunberg.

The shortlist unveiled earlier last weekwas a clear reflection of the year’s most dramatic events. Biden, Trump, Frontline Health Care Workers and Dr. Fauci and the Movement for Racial Justice were all major characters in a tumultuous year that included a deadly pandemic, social unrest over racial injustices and a contentious election.

NBA star LeBron James was named Athlete of the Year and Korean pop group BTS was Entertainer of the Year, both of which were revealed on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday morning. The Person of the Year was introduced in a special prime time broadcast on the network, marking the first time that NBC has partnered with the magazine’s Emmy-winning Time Studios on coverage of this scale for Person of the Year.

Actors Issa Rae and Matthew McConaughey kicked off the hour-long, star-studded event that included appearances by Vanessa Bryant, John Cena, Yo Yo Ma, BTS and H.E.R. Bruce Springsteen presented the Person of the Year.

Time expanded its Person of the Year franchise last year by introducing four additional categories including Businessperson of the Year. The decision came after Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff bought Time in 2018 from magazine conglomerate Meredith Corp (MDP), which had acquired Time Inc. in 2017.

In a statement, Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote: “For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year.”

Biden is the 10th President-elect to achieve the title, but his selection marks the first time a President-elect and Vice President-elect have shared the cover together, The Hill news reported.Former Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford are the only US Presidents never named “Person of the Year”.