Donald Trump was dealt another blow to his attempt to overturn the results of the election on Monday as a Michigan board certified the more than 150,000 vote margin by which Joe Biden won the battleground state.
The certification was the latest sign of Mr Trump’s dwindling chances of successfully challenging Mr Biden’s victory as states have moved to finalise their results and courts have roundly rejected his lawsuits.
Michigan, where a four-person bipartisan board must approve the election results, had been one of the president’s best hopes of derailing the electoral process. A deadlock would have led to litigation or, in extreme circumstances, the intervention of the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.
Mr Trump and his allies have been pressuring Republican election officials in Michigan and elsewhere to refuse to affirm Mr Biden’s win or throw out ballots in an attempt to create an opening for the president to reverse his loss.
On Monday, the Republican vice-chairman of the Michigan board of canvassers, Aaron Van Langevelde, defied that pressure as he voted with two Democrats to approve the state’s results. A second Republican, Norman Shinkle, abstained.
“As John Adams once said, we are a government of laws, not men, and this board needs to adhere that principle here today,” said Mr Van Langevelde at a public board meeting, explaining that Michigan law gave him no discretion to vote otherwise.
The meeting of the board of state canvassers was unlike any in Michigan’s history. The state board of canvassers has always certified presidential results unanimously and with little fanfare.
But the stakes had been raised by the brief deadlock of a similar county-level board last week and the overt pressure Mr Trump has placed on state officials in Michigan and elsewhere.
Around 30,000 people tuned in to the livestream and hundreds of Michigan citizens spoke at the meeting, many of them urging the board to certify its results.
The Trump campaign on Monday dismissed certifications as a “simply a procedural step” and said it would continue to challenge the results. In the days after the November 3 polls, campaign officials had held up the fact that the vote had not been certified to argue the election was not over.
Mr Trump has faced increasing pushback from US business leaders and Republicans for his unprecedented effort to cling to office and his continued refusal to begin the transition process to Mr Biden’s administration.
Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, and David Solomon, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, joined more than 160 executives in voicing their concerns on Monday in a letter organised by the non-profit Partnership for New York City.
The letter warned that further delays to the transition threatened US attempts to control the public health and economic crises caused by Covid-19.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee issued a statement saying the election “is rapidly coming to a formal end” and calling on Mr Trump to “put the country first and have a prompt and orderly transition”.
“When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you do,” said Mr Alexander, who is retiring after this year.
Earlier on Monday, Shelley Moore Capito, the Republican senator from West Virginia, issued a similar call, saying there was “no indication” of any fraud that would overturn the results of the election.
“At some point, the 2020 election must end,” she said in a statement. The senator stopped short of stating that the moment for it to end was now, but added: “If states certify the results as they currently stand, vice-president Joe Biden will be our next president and Senator Kamala Harris will be our next vice-president.”
In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court handed Mr Trump another defeat, rejecting his challenge to 8,329 ballots in Philadelphia while also dismissing a related challenge to ballots in Allegheny County brought by a Pennsylvania Republican.
“[F]ailures to include a handwritten name, address or date in the voter declaration on the back of the outer envelope, while constituting technical violations of the Election Code, do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvania voters,” the court ruled.
Counties in Pennsylvania have a Monday deadline to certify their results to state officials, though a small number appeared set to miss that deadline. Mr Trump on Saturday lost a case that sought to block the certification process, but the president’s campaign has appealed.
Georgia, where Republican election officials certified Mr Biden’s win last week, is set to begin on Tuesday a recount requested by the Trump campaign. The recount, which will be conducted by machine, is not expected to change the result. An already-completed hand recount did not significantly alter Mr Biden’s margin of victory in the state.
Swamp Notes
After a historic 2020 election, stay on top of the biggest themes driving US politics, business and markets from Washington, New York and beyond with Rana Foroohar and Edward Luce. Sign up here