Who Formally Declares the Winner of the US Presidential Election?

On 6 January, Congress convenes to count the electoral votes and certify the winner of the election.

Because the sitting vice president also serves as president of the Senate, Kamala Harris will preside over this count in 2025, just as Vice President Mike Pence did in January 2021 when Joe Biden officially became president-elect. Each state, called upon in alphabetical order, files its votes.

This process is normally ceremonial, because by January the media has declared a winner and usually a concession speech has been given. But, officially, it is the moment of truth.

On 6 January 2021, an armed pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. Both chambers of Congress were evacuated during the attack, and five people were killed.

Lawmakers reconvened a few hours later. It is the vice president’s job to announce the results and ask whether there are any objections. After the violent assault on the Capitol, most Senate Republicans abandoned their plans to dispute Biden’s win in 2021, but six still objected.

Objections are not unprecedented. In 2001 Democratic House representatives tried for 20 minutes to block Florida’s highly contested electoral votes for George W Bush.

Both of those efforts failed because objections had to be signed by both a member of the House and the Senate before being voted on by both chambers of Congress. Lodging challenges got harder following legislation passed in 2022. Now, 20 senators and 87 House members must back any challenge to the certification of a state’s Electoral College results.

In 2021, it fell to Pence, as president of the Senate, to declare Biden – not Trump – the next president of the United States. He fulfilled his constitutional duty despite immense pressure from Trump to subvert democracy.

Those who question the outcome of a US election, in other words, can double-check the tabulations themselves.