Absent the violence, controversy and false claims of election fraud of four years ago but amid tighter security, Congress certified the electoral vote count on Monday that made Donald Trump the 47th president of the United States.
This time around, no one in Congress rose to object to the votes, no one claimed the election was stolen, no one filed lawsuits to throw out the ballots, no one planned rallies to demand that the results be overturned and no one claimed the vice president could unilaterally reject state-certified electoral votes.
But the reminders of 2021 were there, as fencing was put up around the Capitol complex and more law enforcement personnel were in place, a result of the insurrection by pro-Trump supporters that took place four years ago, as Congress attempted to certify the victory of Joe Biden.
“Congress certifies our great election victory today—a big moment in history,” Trump said on his social media site, Truth Social.
When he is inaugurated on Jan. 20, Trump will become only the second person in U.S. history to serve two non-consecutive terms as president. The other was Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th chief executive.
Harris, who lost the election in November to Trump, presided over the proceedings, joining Richard Nixon in 1960 and Al Gore in 2000, who also certified their own losses in presidential races.
It took lawmakers on Monday about half an hour to certify Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, 312 electoral votes to 226. In 2021, the process took close to 15 hours, after a mob of Trump supporters, citing the former president’s disproven allegations of a stolen election, overran the Capitol. (Trump has maintained that he called for a peaceful protest.)
Members of Congress suspended the count and temporarily huddled in a secret location. “All hell broke loose,” then-Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) said at the time.
When Congress resumed the count, a majority of House Republicans voted to reject the results in the battleground states Arizona and Pennsylvania, but Democrats in both houses and most Senate Republicans refused to go along.
David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C., said that the difference was that four years ago, members of one party wouldn’t accept the results when their side lost, but this year, the other party accepted the results.
“In 2020 and in 2024, our nation’s elections officials ran the most secure, transparent and verified presidential elections in U.S. history, and their work has withstood more scrutiny than any elections in world history,” Becker said on a conference call, in which JNS participated.
Four years ago, Trump and his allies also demanded that then-Vice President Mike Pence throw out the state-certified electoral votes that made Biden the 46th president, but Congress passed a law in 2022 making it clear that the vice president’s role was solely ceremonial.
On Monday, House and Senate members listened as Sens. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the leaders of the Senate Rules Committee, and Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the leaders of the House Administration Committee, took turns reading the results of each state in alphabetical order.
Writing in The Washington Post on Monday, Biden emphasized the peaceful transition that didn’t occur four years ago, reminding the nation of what happened then.
“We cannot forget,” the president wrote. “This is what we owe those who founded this nation, those who have fought for it and died for it. And we should commit to remembering Jan. 6, 2021, every year. To remember it as a day when our democracy was put to the test and prevailed. To remember that democracy—even in America—is never guaranteed.”
The president-elect has continued to contend that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and he and his allies have continued to downplay the violence.
The incoming president has called the rioters “patriots” and described Jan. 6 as “a day of love.” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) called it “a normal tourist visit.” The Republican National Committee called it “legitimate political discourse.”
Close to 1,500 people have been charged with crimes, and around 140 police officers were assaulted, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Some 1,000 defendants have pleaded guilty, and around 220 others were convicted, according to CBS News.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Monday that it was “one of the most shameful, reprehensible episodes in the history of this great nation.”
“We cannot let anyone whitewash what happened here four years ago,” he said. “Far too many individuals have tried to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, have tried to sweep the truth under the rug and pretend like the way was perfectly fine or even a moment of great patriotism. That is a lie, plain and simple.”
Trump has promised to pardon the rioters after taking office, but U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and handled some of the Jan. 6 cases, said that won’t change the facts.
“No matter what ultimately becomes of the Capitol riots cases already concluded and still pending, the true story of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, will never change,” Lamberth said.
Trump was impeached by the House for his role in the insurrection, having told supporters at a rally near the White House earlier in the day to march to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” but also told them to “fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
He was acquitted by the Senate, but not before then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of that day.”
The only claims about voter fraud this time came from the far-left corner of the Democratic Party, none of which were embraced by mainstream party members. That stood in stark comparison to four years ago, when substantiated allegations of a stolen election were repeated by top GOP officials, according to Becker.
“What we’re seeing is, as in 2020, the only thing that drives election denial is whether or not someone likes the outcome,” Becker said. “Election denialism is not dead, it is completely tied to outcome.”