Nothing stands in the way now for President-elect Donald Trump to be inaugurated as the 45th President of the U.S. as Congress made Trump's election official this Friday, certifying the votes of the Electoral College in a formal joint session of Congress.
After the electoral votes were read out in the House Chamber, Trump's victory stood solid at 304 votes, far ahead of his Democratic rival and defeated candidate Hillary Clinton with 227 votes. The other presidential candidates received a total of seven votes.
The special joint session of Congress to certify the votes is the final step in the presidential election process as established by the U.S. Constitution. In fact, this Friday's session should have been nothing more than a formality, except for the last ditch efforts of Democratic representatives and allies of Hillary who tried to block the certification of Trump's clear victory. Some Democratic representatives refused to go without putting up a fight and conceding to the win of Trump, but they lacked the adequate ammunition in their fight and ended up with efforts that proved futile.
Any legislator can offer an objection during the Electoral College counting process as long as such objection is endorsed by a member of both the House and Senate. In case a House member managed to secure support from a Senator, it could have delayed by hours the certification of Trump's victory, as the branches would have to meet separately and debate the merits of any challenge or objection before reconvening to establish a vote as required by law.
In Friday's session, the process was over in less than an hour inspite of the attempts by Democratic lawmakers to object 11 times using a range of issues from " Russian interference", to " massive voter suppression", to the " violation of the Voting Rights Act ". However, they failed to secure support from even a single senator.
Vice- President Joe Biden presided over the proceedings and aware of the futility of the objections, sped through it all. After a third objection, Biden asked again if a senator has signed on and the answer being negative, the outgoing VP then declared: "it's over!". And with that, sealing in the process his party and Hillary's
