Joe Biden will be one formal step closer to the presidency after Tuesday’s deadline for states to certify their slates of electors to the Electoral College -- locking in the names of the people who will formally vote to make Biden the president. Once that happens, there’s little turning back. Congress must by law accept those electors if there’s no outstanding litigation, and President Donald Trump’s legal challenges have even less hope of changing the outcome. Electors meet in each state on Dec. 14 to officially cast their votes. All of the battleground states where Trump tried to contest the results have certified their presidential election tallies and appointed their electors for Biden, and he has more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed. Only Colorado and Hawaii are left to certify their results among the states Biden won but even they cannot change the outcome. Federal law says that if a state appoints its electors and all litigation is resolved by Dec. 8 -- the so-called safe harbor deadline -- Congress must consider them “conclusive” when it meets in a joint session on Jan. 6 to tally the votes. Normally, the deadline passes without much notice. But this year, Trump has refused to concede despite Biden’s clear victory with 306 Electoral College votes, the same as Trump had in 2016. Trump and his allies have claimed, without evidence, that the election was “rigged” and that he actually won. There is still pending litigation in Wisconsin and some other states, but the Biden electors are valid even if the lawsuits aren’t resolved until after the safe harbor deadline, said Edward Foley, a professor and director of an election-law program at Ohio State University, who has studied disputed elections. As long as there is only one submission of electoral votes from a state, Congress must accept it unless it’s rejected by both chambers -- which isn’t going to happen, Foley said. Congress can still accept a submission that lacks safe harbor status, he said. “They won’t jeopardize Biden’s inauguration, and they’re not going to jeopardize the ability of the electors to meet and cast their vote,” Foley said of the outstanding suits. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake