Biden's Electoral College Win Confirmed In Colorado, Rest Of U.S.

DENVER, CO — President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President elect Kamala Harris received their nine electoral votes from Colorado's presidential electors Monday.

The Electoral College voted to confirm Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election, solidifying the former vice president as the country's 46th president come Jan. 20.

Governor Jared Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold offered remarks in the state Capitol on Monday before Colorado Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats swore in the electors.

One of the electors failed to appear at the last moment, and they were replaced.

All nine electors then cast their votes for Biden and Harris, who received the highest numbers of votes in Colorado’s General Election. Griswold certified the electors' votes after they were cast.

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During the 2016 presidential election, a Colorado elector, Michael Baca, was replaced with another elector after Baca tried to vote for a candidate other than Hillary Clinton. After Baca's faithless elector case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Colorado electors are required to choose the winner of the state's popular vote in presidential elections.

The Electoral College met in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on Monday.

"The electoral ballots cast today are the final votes that will be cast in an election year unlike any other in our nation’s history,” Griswold said in a statement.

“By awarding Colorado’s electoral votes to the winner of our state’s election for president and vice president, electors play an important role in reaffirming the democratic principle that the people — everyday American people — decide the leaders of the United States.”

Legal challenges by President Donald Trump to overturn the general election results in key battleground states have been unsuccessful, as Trump continues to make claims that the Nov. 3 election was fraudulent.

Biden's win was clinched with narrow victories in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The votes cast Monday will be unofficially tallied. Congress will receive those votes and officially count them Jan. 6.

The Washington Post has an interactive map that tracked the votes for Biden and Trump as they came in.

The Electoral College is a group of 538 people, chosen by the states and the District of Columbia, who are responsible for electing the president and vice president. States are allocated electors based on their number of congressional legislators. For example, Colorado is entitled to nine electors because it has two members of the U.S. Senate and seven members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

When a voter casts a vote for a presidential ticket, the voter is casting a vote for the slate of electors that was chosen to represent that ticket in the Electoral College. In Colorado, political parties nominate their Electoral College electors during the state party conventions.

The following are electors who cast votes Monday on behalf of Colorado: Anita Lynch, Denver; Jerad Sutton, Greeley; Judith Ingelido, Colorado Springs; Bryan Hartmann, Highlands Ranch; Roger Fang, Denver; Victoria Marquesen, Pueblo; Susan McFaddin, Fort Collins; Polly Baca, Denver; Alan Kennedy, Denver.