Pa. certifies Joe Biden as winner of election
HARRISBURG — Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden has been certified as the winner of the presidential election in Pennsylvania, culminating three weeks of vote counting and a string of failed legal challenges by President Donald Trump, state officials said Tuesday.
The state formality comes a day after Butler County officials certified its local election tallies with Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar. County Commissioner Kevin Boozel said the county’s official vote totals are unchanged from what it has been reporting, and fewer than 100 mail-in votes had to be discarded because of “naked” ballots, or those without the inner secrecy envelope in addition to the outer mailing envelope.
The Pennsylvania State Department “certified the results of the Nov. 3 election in Pennsylvania for president and vice president of the United States,” Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, tweeted.
“As required by federal law, I’ve signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for the slate of electors for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Wolf wrote.
The State Department said Wolf’s “certificate of ascertainment” has been sent to the national archivist in Washington. Pennsylvania’s electors, a mix of elected Democrats, party activists and other staunch Biden backers, will meet in the state capitol on Dec. 14.
The results show Biden and Harris with 3.46 million votes, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen with 79,000. The latest unofficial results from Butler County showed Biden with 37,508 votes, Trump with 74,359 votes and Jorgenson with 1,438.
Boockvar, in a news release, called the state’s election officials and poll workers “the true heroes of our democracy.”
“We are tremendously grateful to all 67 counties who have been working extremely long hours to ensure that every qualified voter’s vote is counted safely and securely,” Boockvar said.
Boozel echoed Boockvar’s comments, saying county elections directors worked long hours to ensure compliance with the seemingly ever-changing rules surrounding the election after the state Legislature passed two changes to Pennsylvania’s voting laws and pre-election lawsuits altered the lay of the land.
“I just want to give a big shout-out to all the election directors across Pennsylvania who ensured a safe and secure election,” he added.
Trump, who lost the state’s 20 electoral votes to Biden, has made Pennsylvania a centerpiece of his unsuccessful legal attempts to invalidate the election results.
A federal judge on Saturday dealt a serious blow to the Trump campaign’s legal efforts by dismissing a lawsuit he said lacked evidence and offered “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”
Boozel said the county wants to play a role in future election procedural changes, positing it was not fair to local officials to alter the rules late in the game. He said Wolf has an advisory committee he plans to summon in January, and that Butler County plans to make its voice heard.
“We want to be at the front of that line,” Boozel said.
If Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and their respective elections directors are unable to sway the governor and Legislature to a set of agreements, Boozel said he plans on abiding by whichever rules are in place for the next election.
“I think it’s up to local officials to hold the pieces together, and that’s what I intend to do,” he said.
Eagle staff writer Alex J. Weidenhof contributed to this report.
