Electoral College Meets in Formal Step Toward Biden Presidency

Vermont and Indiana, at 10 a.m. local time, will be among the earliest states to convene electors, while Hawaii won’t start its process until nine hours later.

On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a long-shot bid filed by Texas Attorney General

Ken Paxton

to void 20 million votes in four other states. More than 100 House Republicans signed a brief in support of the lawsuit, which was Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to overturn election results and came after dozens of other failed efforts to overturn Mr. Biden’s win.

Some of the other Republicans who haven’t publicly acknowledged Mr. Biden’s victory have said the legal process should continue and that any voting problems should be investigated. However, Attorney General

William Barr

has said the Justice Department hasn’t found evidence of widespread voter fraud. “There will be a president sworn in on Jan. 20, but let’s let this legal process play itself out,”

Rep. Steve Scalise

(R., La.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Electoral votes by state

One square equals

one electoral vote

One square equals

one electoral vote

One square equals

one electoral vote

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equals one

electoral vote

Other Republicans have said the president should accept Mr. Biden’s win. “The courts have resolved the disputes. It looks very much like the electors will vote for Joe Biden,” retiring

Sen. Lamar Alexander

(R., Tenn.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I hope that he puts the country first—I mean, the president—that he takes pride in his considerable accomplishments, that he congratulates the president-elect, and he helps him get off to a good start.”

After Monday’s voting, the next major step comes on Jan. 6, when Vice President

Mike Pence

is expected to preside over a joint session of Congress and have the electoral totals read aloud. A candidate will be declared the winner upon reaching 270 electoral votes.

The Electoral College, created by the nation’s founders as a compromise between those who favored a direct popular vote and those who wanted lawmakers to pick presidents, will see some adjustments because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some states are placing limits on the number of guests electors can bring, while others are moving the meetings to larger spaces to better accommodate social distancing.

Added security measures are also being adopted by some states amid a tense national political climate and Covid-19 restrictions. Some meetings will take place in mostly closed capitol buildings with few observers, although many of the proceedings will be livestreamed.

Electors are legally bound in some states to vote for the person who won their state, a requirement the Supreme Court said earlier this year is permissible. In others, so-called faithless electors can break ranks, though that is rare. In 2016, seven electors voted for someone other than their party’s nominee.

In each state, electors will review the election results and sign certificates containing separate electoral-vote totals for the presidential and vice presidential candidates. They will pair those certificates with paperwork from their governor and mail the material to multiple locations.

Some well-known people are among this year’s electors.

Hillary Clinton

is among New York Democrats, as is her husband, former President

Bill Clinton.

Stacey Abrams,

the former Georgia House minority leader who narrowly lost a 2018 bid for governor, is also an elector.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is a Republican elector, as is

Ken Blackwell,

a former Ohio secretary of state and treasurer. They are staunch Trump supporters.

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com and Alexa Corse at alexa.corse@wsj.com