Donald Trump's election win has been certified by a joint sitting of the US Congress.
The certification ceremony was free of the chaos and violence of four years ago, when a mob of election deniers stormed the US Capitol, attacked police and forced members to flee.
The orderly event was undoubtedly still uncomfortable for Kamala Harris, though, whose vice-presidential duties meant she had to preside over a painstaking roll call confirming her loss.
Harris announces her own defeat
Presiding over the certification ceremony was one of Harris's final official acts as vice-president.
With none of the broad smiles or joyous laughter that defined her election campaign, she oversaw the roll call ritual in which the result was confirmed, state by state.
Then, referring to herself in the third person, she announced the tally of electoral college votes to the chamber.
"The votes for president of the United States are as follows," she said.
"Donald J Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes. Kamala D Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes."
The process played out over 40 minutes, with none of the drama of four years ago, when the same ceremony was marred by a violent insurrection on the Capitol building.
"Today was obviously a very important day," Ms Harris said afterwards.
"And it was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power."
Biden warns of 'unrelenting effort' to erase history
Joe Biden warned Americans not to forget the truth about the violent insurrection that took place four years ago, when supporters of Donald Trump who did not accept the election result stormed the Capitol.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, the outgoing president wrote:
"An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand.
"This is not what happened.
"In time, there will be Americans who didn’t witness the Jan 6 riot firsthand but will learn about it from footage and testimony of that day, from what is written in history books and from the truth we pass on to our children. We cannot allow the truth to be lost."
More than 1,500 people have been charged over the insurrection, according to NPR's January 6 database. Of those, more than 1,100 have been sentenced. Almost two-thirds received prison time.
[tweet: andy kim]Trump has referred to them as "hostages". He's said he will pardon at least some of them once he is back in the White House.
"We're going to look at each individual case, and we're going to do it very quickly, and it's going to start in the first hour that I get into office," he told an interview with Time magazine in November. "A vast majority of them should not be in jail."
Weather emergency in Washington
Authorities spent months training officers and beefing up security ahead of the event. Roads around the Capitol were closed and the grounds were ringed by large black fencing.
But, in the end, perhaps the greatest threat to the ceremony came from a snowstorm.
An overnight snow dump of about 13 centimetres, which continued into the morning, prompted authorities to ask people not to leave their homes. A Cold Weather Emergency was declared across Washington.
Federal government offices around the city were closed, along with most schools and some businesses. But the ceremony went ahead.
"There is no snow day for the United States Constitution," Republican congressman Morgan Griffith declared in a video posted to social media.
Vance celebrates on the floor, but Trump stays away
JD Vance is technically still a senator, until he formally becomes the vice-president at inauguration.
So he was part of the joint sitting of Congress for the ceremony.
Afterwards, he posed for photos and selfies with members of Congress on the floor of the chamber.
President-elect Donald Trump was not at the Capitol for the certification of his victory.
But he used social media to declare it a "big moment in history".
The certification of the result paves the way for the January 20 inauguration, when Trump will be returned to the presidency.
