Important Electoral College dates you should know before Inauguration Day: NPR

A person holds the certification of Pennsylvania's electoral votes during a joint session of Congress early Jan. 7, 2021, as the counting of electoral votes resumed following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election — culminating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol — are shining a spotlight on the essentially ministerial moves between Election Day and Inauguration Day.

And as Trump, the Republican nominee, refuses to accept the results of the 2024 presidential election, it is worth paying renewed attention to these incremental aspects of the process.

Here are the most important dates:

November 5th – Election Day

The end of voting marks the beginning of reporting of the results. While votes cannot be cast after Election Day, many states allow postmarked mail-in ballots to be received for several days afterward and allow voters to correct errors with their ballots.

In the next few weeks

Election officials will always tell you that the results reported on election night are unofficial. Over the next few weeks, they will certify those counts, add provisional ballots and ballots from abroad, and address any recounts to get to official results by local and state certification deadlines. (These deadlines vary by state; you can see them all here.)

December 11th – The appointment of the electors

This is an important deadline: Then an “executive official” of the state must certify the state’s presidential electors. (The governor is a state's default executive branch unless state law designates another official in advance.) Under the Electoral Count Reform Act, passed on a bipartisan vote in 2022, that deadline is six days before the meeting of voters what this year means…

December 17th – The election meeting

The appointed presidential electors from each state meet in their state capitals to cast their official votes for the candidate who won their state's votes. Collectively, these meetings are known as meetings of the Electoral College.

December 25th – The arrival of the electoral votes

The President of the Senate and the National Archivist must receive each state's election certificates by the fourth Wednesday in December.

January 3, 2025 – The swearing in of the new Congress

The new Congress will be sworn in before its members count the presidential election votes.

January 6th – The counting of electoral votes in Congress

In the final step of the election, members of Congress meet to count the electoral votes.

Following efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the Electoral Count Reform Act also introduced a number of reforms for this joint session, such as clarifying the role of the Vice President (as President of the Senate) in overseeing this count “ministerial” is raising the objection threshold against a state's electoral lists to one fifth of each chamber.

January 20 – Inauguration Day

The 47th President takes the oath of office in front of the Capitol.