US Presidential Transition

The General Services Administration (GSA) has informed President-elect Joe Biden that the Trump administration is now ready to begin the formal transition process.

Key Points

• The letter from Administrator Emily Murphy acknowledged President Donald Trump’s defeat, more than two weeks after Joe Biden was declared the winner in the election.
• This letter marks the usual process of ‘Ascertainment’, which will allow the transition to officially begin.
• The current administration agency officials are in turn permitted to coordinate with the incoming team of Joe Biden.
• Before the ascertainment and the commencement of formal transition process, the President-elect could neither access government data, nor could make contact with federal agencies, spend USD 6.3 million in government funding available for the transition.
• The decision has been welcomed by Joe Biden team who is set to appoint John Kerry as climate envoy, Anthony Blinken as secretary of state and Janet Yellen as the first female US treasury secretary. This list came out ahead of formal announcements.
• All the appointments will be done after Senate confirmation.

US Elections 2020

The 2020US Elections held in November were the 59th quadrennial presidential election.  In USA, any person above 35 years of age and a resident of United States for at least 14 years is eligible to run for presidential election.  This year’s election saw the highest voter turnout since the year 1900. In US, there are 538 members of the Electoral College and 270 electoral votes needed to win the Election by a person. Joe Biden won the 2020 Election and Kamala Harris became the Vice-president of the country.