President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris on the advisory board of the Covid-19 transition team on November 9, 2020, meeting in Wilmington, Delaware.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Leading U.S. business leaders on Monday asked Congress to confirm this week the victory of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College over President Donald Trump, who refused to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 election.
Business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Manufacturers Association and the New York City Partnership, issued separate statements calling for an end to efforts to undermine Biden’s victory.
“This presidential election has been decided and it is time for the country to move forward. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have won the Electoral College and the courts have rejected challenges to the electoral process,” the New York City Partnership said in his statement.
“Congress must certify the electoral vote on Wednesday, January 6. Attempts to prevent or delay this process go against the essential principles of our democracy,” the group said.
Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue, in his statement, said that “efforts by some members of Congress to disregard certified election results in an effort to alter the election result or to try to defend a long-term political position undermine our democracy and the rule of law and will only result in more division in our nation. “
And the President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, Jay Timmons, in his statement, cited the fact that industry workers “heroically increased” to produce food, vaccines, medicines and other products to combat the Covid-19 epidemic in the last year.
“Our industry has been fighting to protect our country, and now we are asking Congress to join us in healing our nation, rather than promoting more division and violence,” said Timmons.
Congress is due to meet on Wednesday to certify the results of the Electoral College.
Several Republican senators and members of the Chamber of Deputies said they would challenge the certification of voters from various battlefield states that gave Biden his margin of victory.
This effort is expected to fail because both the House and the Senate would have to reject the Electoral College count in favor of Biden to invalidate the results. Democrats have a majority of seats in the House, ensuring that such a move fails there, and a sufficient number of Republican senators said they would not cancel Biden’s victory certification to defeat the effort in his House of Congress.
Trump claimed, without evidence, that he was deceived both in a popular vote victory and in the victory of the Electoral College through widespread electoral fraud.