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| - Joe Biden's White House victory was set for formal confirmation Monday by the Electoral College, further closing the door on angry efforts by President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 US vote. As electors met across all 50 states, often under extra security amid tensions driven by Trump's refusal to concede, the Democratic president-elect urged Americans to "turn the page" on the divisive contest and begin a process of national healing. About three quarters of the way through the process, due to finish late Monday, Biden was on course to rack up an expected 306 Electoral College votes against 232 for Trump. When he reaches the majority threshold of 270 out of 538 electoral votes, his win will be secured. "Democracy prevailed. We the people voted.... The integrity of our elections remains intact," Biden will say in a speech in his home city of Wilmington, Delaware according to excerpts released by his presidential transition team. "Now it is time to turn the page, to unite, to heal," Biden said. "I will be a president for all Americans." The excerpts were released after electors in the six swing states where Trump most vehemently challenged the election results -- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- voted to confirm Biden as the nation's 46th president. "I hope you can see me smiling behind this mask," said Democrat Nancy Patton Mills, as she presided over the vote, held with full Covid-19 precautions, in Pennsylvania. Most electoral voters are unknown to the wider public, but national personalities occasionally take part -- with Trump's 2016 rival Hillary Clinton voting as an elector in New York. The Electoral College is a tradition that has long been considered mostly a formality for confirming the will of the people expressed at the polls. This year, the somewhat arcane procedure is at the center of an ugly -- and many warn dangerous -- challenge led by Trump against the credibility of US democracy. Soundly beaten by Biden on November 3, Trump continues to claim, without evidence, that he was the real winner. Court after court has turned down the Republican team's claims of election fraud and last Friday the US Supreme Court dealt a final legal blow when it threw out an appeal lodged by Trump allies from Texas and other Republican-led states. Yet another challenge, seeking to get Biden's narrow win in Wisconsin tossed out, was rejected Monday by the state's top court. Formal Electoral College confirmation will draw a further line under the election, which saw Biden make Trump a rare one-term president after campaigning on a message of vanquishing the Covid-19 pandemic, healing political division and restoring traditional US diplomacy. Until now, a majority of Republicans in Congress have either backed Trump's claims or at least turned a blind eye, with many refusing to call Biden the president-elect. Disinformation spearheaded by the president and spread by popular commentators on Fox News and new conspiracy theory-mongering outlets like Newsmax means many Americans have all but given up faith in their own institutions. Thousands of Trump supporters, including members of far-right groups, protested in Washington at the weekend, brawling with counter-protesters, while in Georgia footage showed armed activists in camouflage parading at the state Capitol to support Trump's claims. Polls show as few as one in four Republican voters accept the election results, and the White House shows no sign of relenting. Stephen Miller, a senior Trump advisor, told Fox News an "alternate slate of electors" had been created to send its own results to Congress, with Biden declared the loser. And Trump maintained his stream of threats and unsubstantiated claims on Twitter, citing "massive VOTER FRAUD" and declaring that certifying election results would be "a severely punishable crime." The legal Electoral College vote, however, will leave the Trump train almost no place left to go. Ahead of Biden's January 20 inauguration one major formality remains, when Congress, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, opens up and counts the electoral votes on January 6. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is also an elector, called Monday's procedure an "exclamation point, clearly demonstrating -- yet again -- that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States." In the latest sign of a shifting tide, the staunchly Trump-supporting editorial board of The Wall Street Journal told Trump Monday that his time is up. "President Trump's legal challenges have run their course, and he and the rest of the Republican Party can help the country and themselves by acknowledging the result and moving on," it said. sms-mlm/ec
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