US Presidential Election

Article written and Website edited by Misaki Tomiyama, Article edited by Ananya Nayar

On Saturday, 7th November 2020, it was announced that Joe Biden had won the elections and had become the 46th president of the United States. The elections started on Tuesday, November 3rd 2020, and it was different from every other year because of the pandemic; many people voted early, by posting ballots or in person. However, because of the voting done by posts, the voting process took more time compared to every other year.

Image by Sonali Kolhatkar is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Before running for presidency, Trump had been a businessman and a television personality, appearing on shows and in movies, he also owned and founded ‘Trump Towers,’ luxury apartments and hotels all over the world. Joe Biden had been a senator from 1993-2009, they have a say in the decisions being made, Biden was also Barack Obama’s vice-president from 2008-2006.

The American government is divided into 2 parties- The Republican and the Democratic. Donald Trump was the candidate from the Republican party, and Joe Biden from the democratic. In order for a president to get elected in the United states, the candidates have to win at least 270 electoral college votes. Electoral votes are dependent on states and who takes which states, whoever wins a state will get all the electoral votes there. The number of electoral votes in a state are based on the density of the population. A sparsely populated state will have less electoral votes, and a densely populated state will have more electoral votes.

A lot has happened in the United states over these election dates, starting with Joe Biden leading in Pennsylvania (the state that went for Trump in ‘16), Arizona and Georgia. Throughout the campaign and voting, Biden has encouraged that all votes of the citizens should be counted, however, Trump had tweeted several times that there were many voter frauds.

From Twitter

Donald Trump had posted a tweet mentioning “STOP THE COUNT!” on 5th November, when Biden was leading with 264 electoral votes, and Trump 214. Trump’s tweet had instantly gone viral on social media, with many celebrities and popular creators sharing and tweeting it and calling it hilarious. Furthermore, Trump has filed several lawsuits in different states, with many judges dismissing them. These lawsuits claimed that the problems regarding the elections still remain unresolved, however, many legal experts claim that even if these lawsuits were successful, it would be less likely that they change the election results.

There have been several quarrels and protests amongst the people of the opposing parties, and many Trump supporters, protested about the voter frauds. Despite all of the protestations made by Donald Trump, Joe Biden had been elected with 279 electoral votes, and Trump with 214.

Image by Bplewe is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Donald Trump refuses to believe the outcome of the election and is still living in a denial for the results, most states are recounting the ballots and they are rectifying it to make sure there are no errors included that may change the outcome of the election. If the outcome of the recounted votes remain the same, then Biden and Harris will be inaugurated on the 20th of January.

Republican party voters do not accept the results of the election either, some of the 72 million Trump voters still say they are unable to move on. Despite the electoral defeat, Republicans insist Trump won the ‘legal’ votes. Some began using social media platforms and their voices on streets to spread the ideology that Trump had actually won the election.

From Twitter

However, the new president and the election ballots is not the only thing that has been in the limelight for this past week. Kamala Harris has been elected as the vice president of the United States, and is the first woman, and first black and Asian American to have won the vice president election. After the elections, she tweeted “We did it, @JoeBiden”.