December 16, 2020 President-elect Joe Biden called for unity and healing in a deeply divided nation on Monday, hours after electors across the country certified his Electoral College victory over President Donald Trump.

“The integrity of our elections remains intact,” said Biden. “Now it is time to turn the page, to unite, to heal.”

Biden won 306 electoral votes Monday, the same number of options that Trump won in 2016.

“By Trump’s standards, these numbers represented a clear victory then, and I respectfully suggest they do so now,” Biden said in prepared remarks at a Wilmington, Delaware theater.

Biden also praised local officials and election workers, many of whom risked their health, and in some cases, their safety, to administer the election and count the millions of votes.

“We owe these public servants a debt of gratitude,” he said. “They didn’t seek the spotlight. Yet, our democracy survived because of them. Proof, once more, that it’s everyday Americans, infused with honor, character, and decency, that is the heart of the nation.

Biden said the claims made in the lawsuit represented a position we have never seen before. A place that refused to respect the rule of the people, law, and refused to honor our Constitution.

“Thankfully, a unanimous Supreme Court immediately and completely rejected this effort,” Biden said. “The court sent a clear signal to President Trump that they would be no part of an unprecedented assault on democracy.”

The president, his campaign, and his political allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since Election Day, asking federal and state courts to nullify the election results based on unsubstantiated claims of irregularities.

As those efforts failed one by one, Trump began personally pressuring Republican state legislators to intervene in selecting individual electors. But Monday’s Electoral College votes marked a failed end to this gambit.

State and local officials knew the election was honest. It was free, and it was fair, said Biden.

Following Biden’s Electoral College victory, several Republican senators formally acknowledged him as the president-elect, including Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Neither Trump nor the Trump presidential campaign immediately responded to the Electoral College results. The president has vowed to “fight on,” however, although, after Monday’s certified electoral vote, it was unclear what there was left for Trump to contest.