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The Certification of Results
#1
The race may be called, but in Centre County, the count goes on.By: Elizabeth Hardison
When the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden on Saturday morning, putting him over the 270 electoral vote-threshold he needed to capture the presidency, the Centre County Board of Elections didn’t stop processing ballots.
Counties across Pennsylvania have already reported 98 percent of the in-person and mail-in vote totals in the Nov. 3 General Election.
Centre County officials convened at 9 a.m. Saturday morning to start the next, painstaking stage of the vote count: vetting roughly 600 provisional ballots, which were cast on Election Day by voters who had doubts about their eligibility.
As Biden declared victory in the presidential race and leaders across the world started to recognize him as the winner on Saturday, election officials across Pennsylvania remain in the early stages of a meticulous vote count that will take weeks to officially complete. 
Counties may work into next week processing provisional ballots, which are on track to exceed 100,000 statewide, according to WITF-FM
They also have until Tuesday to receive mail-in ballots cast by military members and overseas voters, which must be scanned, counted and added to the race totals, too. 
It’s unlikely that these ballots will affect the outcome of the presidential election. Media outlets such as  the Associated Press only call races when a trailing candidate has no possible path to victory, based on data including the number of outstanding ballots.
But “regardless of any calls or projections that anybody is making, we are still committed to counting every vote,” Centre County Commissioner Michael Pipe said Saturday, according to the Centre Daily Times.
Pennsylvania counties received an abnormally high number of provisional ballots this year due to the state’s expanded vote by mail law. The law allows approved mail-in voters to vote provisionally at the polls if they lost their mail-in ballot or didn’t receive it by Election Day. 
Election officials have to vet each provisional ballot before tabulating and adding it to the county’s vote total. A ballot can be rejected if the voter who cast it is not registered to vote in the county where they cast it, or if officials find they’ve already cast another ballot.  
As Centre County solicitor Elizabeth Depuis said over the meeting’s live stream Saturday, “It’s a labor-intensive process.”
Over the course of nearly three hours Saturday, the Centre County Election Board heard reports of provisional ballots cast at each voting precinct, including how many were flagged for rejection and why. 
County commissioners inspected each ballot in a secrecy envelope, and couldn’t see the vote inside before accepting or disqualifying it. 
Some ballots, including many in areas with large concentrations of student housing, were rejected because voters were not registered in Centre County. 
Others were disqualified because the voter had not signed an affidavit certifying that they had not cast another ballot.
The board will reconvene next week to finish the count. Even then, their work on the 2020 General Election will be far from complete. 
Once they count every ballot, county officials have to double check their work and complete an audit of the results to make sure they’re accurate.
State law gives counties 20 days to finalize their count and vote to certify their results. Until they do – typically in the days before Thanksgiving – the results of the election are considered “unofficial.
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#2
What happens after Election DayWe've sketched out the legal mechanisms that lead from Election Day to Inauguration Day. Next to each item below is an icon that denotes whether state laws () or federal laws () are relevant.
November 3 – Election Day
Voters voted, votes were counted. 
While many millions of Americans cast their ballots in the weeks leading up to Election Day, either by mail or as an in-person absentee voter, US law says Election Day occurs on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Votes were counted across the country on Election Day.
November 4 – November 23
Votes are counted.
Mail-in ballots had to be postmarked by November 3 in every US state, but they can be received late and still counted in many states. In most cases, they must be received within a day or two of Election Day. But in Washington state, mail-in ballots can be received as late as November 23 -- the day before the state certifies its election results. In the battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania, mail-in votes can be received until November 6. 

In the battlegrounds of Minnesota and Nevada, they can be received until November 10. And in Ohio, they can be received until November 13.
November 10 – December 11
States certify election results.
Each state does it a little bit differently, but starting a week after Election Day, state governments begin to certify their election results. Those deadlines can be changed in the event of a state recount if there is an extremely close result. Most of these dates occur in the last two weeks of November and all but California's are mandated to occur by December 8.
December 8
"Safe harbor" to determine election results and assign electors. 
Under the Electoral Count Act, this is the date by which states are meant to have counted votes, settled disputes, and determined the winner of their electoral college votes. Governors are supposed to create certificates of ascertainment listing the winner of the election and the slate of electors. In 2000, the Supreme Court ended a targeted recount in Florida because it could not be completed by this safe harbor date. That recount would not have changed the outcome of the election, but a full statewide recount could have made Al Gore president. This is when it could become very important for Republicans that they control more state legislatures than Democrats, including in most of the contested 2020 battleground states.
December 14
Electoral votes cast.
In law this date is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year it falls on December 14. Six days after disputes are supposed to be settled, electors are supposed to meet in their respective states and cast votes for US President. They certify six sets of votes and send them to Washington. Many states have laws requiring their electors to support the winner of their state's election and can levy fines against faithless electors who go their own way. 
December 23
Electoral votes must arrive in Washington.
The certified electoral votes have nine days to get from their states to Capitol Hill.
January 3
New Congress is sworn in.
Members of the House and new members of the Senate take the oath of office at noon. This is the official start of the 117th Congress.
January 6
Electoral votes counted.
Members of the House and the Senate all meet in the House chamber. The President of the Senate (that’s Vice President Mike Pence) presides over the session and the Electoral votes are read and counted in alphabetical order by two appointees each from the House and Senate. They then give their tallies to Pence, who announces the results and listens for objections. 

If there are objections or if there are, somehow, multiple slates of electors put forward by a state, the House and Senate consider them separately to decide how to count those votes. 

There are 538 electoral votes -- one for each congressman and senator plus three for Washington, DC. If no candidate gets 270, the 435 members of the House decide the election. Each state gets a vote. While there are more Democrats in the House, Republicans, as of now, control more state delegations, so it is very possible the House could pick Donald Trump even though there is a Democratic majority. It requires a majority of state votes to become President. The House has until noon on January 20 to pick the President. If they can't, it would be the vice president or the next person eligible in the line of presidential succession.
January 20
Inauguration Day.
A new president takes the oath of office at noon. If the President-elect dies between Election Day and Inauguration, the vice president-elect takes the oath of office and becomes President. In a disputed election, if the House has not chosen a President but the Senate has chosen a vice president, the vice president-elect becomes acting president until the House makes a choice. And if there's no president-elect and no vice president-elect, the House appoints a president until one is chosen.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/politics/...index.html

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