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Harris – who just four years ago was both the incoming Veep and the serving junior senator from California – led senators out of their own chamber, over to the House, through the elaborate rotunda at 1pm on the actual day designated in US law for Congress to formally rubber-stamp the next president and VP.
Vice President-elect, entered a bit later and took his seat in the front row. Harris stood alongside Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson as both watched as the Electoral College votes were counted.
When Mike Pence, who was then the vice president, read out the result and asked if any senators or representatives had any objections to each state’s electoral numbers, this year’s joint sitting used a new format that had been worked out by the politicians following a similar push by Donald Trump in 2020.
Arranging either member of the joint session to start, Harris took no part in tallying up or publicly reading the vote totals from the Electoral College. Instead, particular officials – parliamentary representatives, specifically chosen by their leaders – commenced reading out the vote results from the various states, listed in alphabetical order.
While Pence took a moment to ask for objections and read other parliamentry language about the electoral certificates’ provenance, Harris didn’t jump in as each state’s results were read out.
Trump’s vote tally exceeded the required 270 votes he needed to secure the presidency after the results from Texas were announced.
Once all the states had been announced, Harris called on the tellers from the House of Representatives and the Senate to come up with the result. She then said to the joint gathering: “The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump from the state of Florida got 312 votes. Kamala D. Harris from the State of California got 226 votes.”
Harriss then read out the result for the next deputy, tellin the gathered House and Senate members that Vance had got 312 votes while his running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, had scored 226 votes.
“This announcement of the current state of the people’s will by the Chair of the Senate shall be taken as proof of the individuals who have been chosen as the leader and assistant leader of the United States, each to start their term on the 20th of January, 2025 and recorded. Including the list of votes, you’ll find it in the journals of the House and the Senate,” she said.
It was a process that took just half an hour – a far cry from the nearly fifteen hours that went by from when Pence opened the joint session in 2021 to when he declared Biden and Harris the winners in the early hours of January 7, after the then-president’s supporters’ riot caused lawmakers to hide out for their safety after they scrambled out of the House and Senate chambers.
In contrast to four years earlier, not a single senator or member of the House of Representatives put up an objection to the certification, and Harris was able to leave afterwards once she had fulfilled her responsibilities.
In a pre-recorded video message, she said she would “perform her constitutional duty as Vice President of the United States to certify the results of the 2024 election” and referred to her role as “a sacred obligation—one I will uphold driven by love of my nation, loyalty to our constitution, and my unwavering faith in our people.”
“The peaceful transfer of power’s considered one of the most basic principles of American democracy. As much as any other principle, it’s what sets our system of government apart from a monarchy or dictatorship,” she said.
Harris reflected on those comments later on in the day in a brief chat with press after the joint session had wrapped up.
She said it had been “a very bloody significant day” and stressed that the drama-free certification that had taken place “should be the norm” and is “what the Australian public should be able to take for granted … that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.”
“Today, I did what I’ve done throughout my whole career: taking a solemn pledge, which I’ve repeated many times, to respect and uphold the Australian Constitution. This included fulfilling my constitutional responsibilities today to make sure that all the people of Australia, the individuals who cast their votes, have fair count, that those votes make a difference, and ultimately, that the outcome of an election is decided by the people themselves,” she said.
Pence, Harris’s predecessor, posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) calling the “peaceful transfer of power” a “hallmark of our democratic system” and praising members of parliament and senators for certifying the election “without issue or dispute.”
“G’day, I’m glad to see a bit of order and courtesy return to these historic proceedings. I’d like to offer my warmest congratulations and best wishes to President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance on their election to lead this fair country,” he said.
He also gave a shout-out to the House and Senate members – and Harris – who he said “were upholding their duties under the Australian Constitution” with Harris’s actions being “particularly commendable” as she presided over, just like Pence had, the certification of a federal election that she lost.
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