‘Democracy prevailed’

President-elect Joe Biden delivered a forceful rebuke on Monday to President Donald Trump's attacks on the legitimacy of his victory, hours after winning the state-by-state Electoral College vote that officially determines the US presidency.

"In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed," Biden said in a prime-time speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. "Now it's time to turn the page, as we've done throughout our history – to unite, to heal."

Monday's vote, typically a formality, assumed outsized significance in light of Trump's extraordinary effort to subvert the process due to what he has falsely alleged was widespread voter fraud in the November 3 election.

California, the most-populous US state, put Biden over the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College when its 55 electors unanimously cast ballots for him and his running mate, Kamala Harris. Biden and Harris - the first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to become vice president-elect - will be sworn in on January 20.

Several senior Republican senators acknowledged Biden as the country's president-elect, and rejected the idea of overturning the 2020 presidential election in Congress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday congratulated Biden on his victory in the election, the Kremlin said.

"For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you," the Kremlin cited Putin as saying in a statement.

In a roughly 13-minute speech, Biden, the Democratic former vice president, called for unity while voicing confidence that the country's democratic institutions had held in the face of Trump's attempts to reverse the election outcome.

"The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago," Biden said. "We now know that not even a pandemic or an abuse of power can extinguish that flame."

Biden emphasized that Trump and his allies filed "dozens and dozens" of legal challenges to the vote totals without success, including a Texas lawsuit that asked the US Supreme Court to invalidate four states' results. The court, including three Trump appointees, rejected the bid with no dissents last week.

He also noted that his 306-232 margin in the Electoral College was the same as Trump's 2016 victory, which the Republican described as a "landslide."

Under a complicated system dating back to the 1780s, a candidate becomes US president not by winning the popular vote but through the Electoral College system, which allots electoral votes to the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on congressional representation.

In 2016, Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. Biden won the popular vote in November by more than 7 million votes.

Meanwhile, US Attorney General William Barr said on Monday he will step down next week, shortly after the Electoral College confirmed Trump's loss to Biden.

Barr, who had angered Trump by not supporting his incorrect claims that the November 3 election result had been tainted by widespread fraud, said he would leave office on December 23.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE

Some Trump supporters had called for protests on social media, and election officials had expressed concern about the potential for violence amid the president's heated rhetoric. But Monday's vote proceeded smoothly, with no major disruptions.

In Arizona, at the beginning of the electors' meeting there, the state's Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, said Trump's claims of fraud had "led to threats of violence against me, my office and those in this room today," echoing similar reports of threats and intimidation in other states.

"While there will be those who are upset their candidate didn't win, it is patently un-American and unacceptable that today's event should be anything less than an honored tradition held with pride and in celebration," Hobbs said.

In Lansing, Michigan, where Trump supporters on Facebook had urged protesters to gather outside the state Capitol, only a handful showed up. Bob Ray, 66, a retired construction worker, held a sign that read: "Order a forensic audit," "save America" and "stop communism."

Trump's sole remaining gambit is to convince Congress to reject the results in January.

Under federal law, any member of Congress may object to a particular state's electoral count during the January 6 session. Each chamber of Congress must then debate the challenge before voting by simple majority on whether to sustain it.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is sure to reject any such challenge, while senior Republicans in the Senate on Monday dismissed the idea of overturning the result.