Until we have an official president-elect, no further changes are likely
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
While Joe Biden is currently considered to be in the lead, it has been such a close, neck-and-neck race that no news outlet is yet comfortable declaring a winner. And even if we reach the point sometime on Friday where it is generally accepted that Biden has won, it remains to be seen whether Donald Trump would concede defeat. Considering the fact that he falsely declared he had already won the election in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and given his multiple, unfounded assertions of voter fraud and attempts to challenge results in the state courts, it seems a far-fetched assumption that he would go quietly into that good night in the event Biden is declared the winner.
If Biden wins and Trump does not concede, Secret Service may wait under agency protocol until the electoral college meets in mid-December to verify the election results before officially treating Biden as the president-elect (via The Washington Post). This is what occurred in 2000, when, for 36 days, there was no official president-elect while recounts were conducted in Florida, and then a legal fight took place in the Supreme Court. At that time, the Secret Service maintained vice-presidential protective detail for Gore and continued to protect Bush as a major candidate.
The Real Reason Joe Biden Is Getting Extra Secret Service Protection
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Until we have an official president-elect, no further changes are likely
While Joe Biden is currently considered to be in the lead, it has been such a close, neck-and-neck race that no news outlet is yet comfortable declaring a winner. And even if we reach the point sometime on Friday where it is generally accepted that Biden has won, it remains to be seen whether Donald Trump would concede defeat. Considering the fact that he falsely declared he had already won the election in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and given his multiple, unfounded assertions of voter fraud and attempts to challenge results in the state courts, it seems a far-fetched assumption that he would go quietly into that good night in the event Biden is declared the winner.
If Biden wins and Trump does not concede, Secret Service may wait under agency protocol until the electoral college meets in mid-December to verify the election results before officially treating Biden as the president-elect (via The Washington Post). This is what occurred in 2000, when, for 36 days, there was no official president-elect while recounts were conducted in Florida, and then a legal fight took place in the Supreme Court. At that time, the Secret Service maintained vice-presidential protective detail for Gore and continued to protect Bush as a major candidate.
If Biden wins and Trump does not concede, Secret Service may wait under agency protocol until the electoral college meets in mid-December to verify the election results before officially treating Biden as the president-elect (via The Washington Post). This is what occurred in 2000, when, for 36 days, there was no official president-elect while recounts were conducted in Florida, and then a legal fight took place in the Supreme Court. At that time, the Secret Service maintained vice-presidential protective detail for Gore and continued to protect Bush as a major candidate.
