The day of reckoning has finally come and gone, and yet as votes were counted, US citizens along with the rest of the world waited to see who would be elected president.
On Nov. 7, the strongest voter turnout in 120 years amounted to 66.9 percent of people casting their ballots. President Donald Trump had strong voter support at the polls on Election Day, which led to an early lead over former Vice President Joe Biden in many states.
However, as the counting of the absentee ballots went on, Biden gained a significant lead in electoral college votes.
Swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin went to Biden, giving him a lead of 290 electoral votes and Trump with 214.
With this, many worried Trump would accuse some states of inaccurately and fraudulently counting the votes, threaten legal action and get the Supreme Court involved.
And that’s just what Trump did, saying what crucial battleground states such as Pennsylvania did was “unthinkable and illegal in this country.”
Trump claims that the state had prevented him and his administration from watching much of the ballot count, after he had at one point a 16 percent lead in Pennsylvania on Election Day that just vanished into thin air within days.
Trump had been tweeting giving updates about Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Trump capped off his updates with tweets giving hope to his supporters across the country.
“WE ARE MAKING BIG PROGRESS. RESULTS START TO COME IN NEXT WEEK. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! WE WILL WIN!” Trump tweeted.
Young and many first-time voters expressed their opinions on how they felt about the election and what it might mean for the future.
Albert Wilson, political science major at Gettysburg College, stated, “I have mixed emotions. In the short run I’m very happy. A Biden victory seemed obvious even in the early Wednesday hours, so I’ve also been much calmer than I was on election night in 2016. However, the path forward is difficult. Democrats failed to retake the Senate and this will pose numerous legislative challenges in the next two years.”
Matthew Davies, student at Temple University, said, “I believe Trump’s early call of victory was ignorant and unprofessional.”
Trump prematurely claimed he was going to win the election by citing his apparent leads in states, some of which have since declared Biden as the victor of their coveted electoral votes.
The American people have chosen Biden to be their next president. With Trump refusing to concede and many allegations of voter fraud, it is going to be a long three months until someone needs to be sworn into office.