Nine Colorado Democrats gathered in the west foyer of the state Capitol at high noon Monday to put the final stamp on Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ Nov. 3 victory, as the Electoral College cast a closely watched vote amid ongoing resistance to an election President Trump has yet to concede.
The electors, chosen earlier this year at a Democratic Party assembly, sat wearing masks at folding tables and checked off boxes on separate ballots for Biden and Harris before state election director, Judd Choate, announced the results.
“Colorado casts its nine electoral votes for Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris to be president and vice president of the United States,” Choate said, as the room broke out in applause.
“Pretty awesome,” is how Denverite Nita Lynch described her first Electoral College experience. “It’s an honor.”
Lynch competed with 20 other Democrats earlier this year to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in the Electoral College. The state’s electors hail from each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts, plus two statewide electors.
Lynch remarked on the lack of notable political names or operatives among the nine who voted Monday.
“When you look at the list of electors, we’re ordinary grassroots people,” she said. “That makes me proud that Colorado picked normal, everyday people for this honor.”
The Electoral College vote, normally a perfunctory affair devoid of drama but required by the U.S. Constitution, took on special significance this year as the president and his political allies have put forward numerous unfounded claims of vote-stealing and election fraud since the election six weeks ago.
Trump’s resistance to the election results, which he lost to Biden by more than 7 million votes, culminated last week in a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that rejected a lawsuit from more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general attempting to overturn Biden’s victory.
Each state’s electors cast their votes Monday — a total of 538 nationwide — with Hawaii the final state set to vote at 5 p.m. MST. Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 — more than the 270 needed to win the White House.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced after the vote that several copies of the “certificates of ascertainment” signed by the electors would be archived in Colorado and Washington, D.C., with perhaps the most important copy bound for Vice President Mike Pence, who as president of the U.S. Senate, will read off the states’ electoral votes during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
“It’s a very solemn affair,” said Judi Ingelido, an elector from Colorado Springs. “To be able to be a part of history, I felt a real sense of responsibility.”
Ingelido, just shy of her 73rd birthday, said this was her first time being in the Electoral College. She had heard about protests in front of other statehouses around the country, led by those dubious of Biden’s win, but said she encountered no problems entering the state Capitol Monday.
Not that it would have mattered.
“It was going to take more than that to stop me,” Ingeligo said.