Trump loyalists object to Arizona electoral votes in first move to overturn Biden’s win

Democrats and many Republicans expected to vote down series of challenges, sealing Biden’s win

Congressional Republicans have formally objected to the 11 Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden from the state of Arizona, kicking off a series of five such challenges to the 2020 election results to be heard throughout the day.

“I rise up for myself and 60 of my colleagues to object to the counting of the electoral ballots from Arizona,” GOP Congressman Paul Gosar said at a joint session of Congress to certify the election results on Wednesday.

Republicans — citing voting “irregularities” widespread allegations of “fraud” which have either been disproven or unsubstantiated in the courts countless times over the last nine weeks — are challenging the Electoral College submissions from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If successful, those challenges would wipe out Mr Biden’s victory and pave the way for Donald Trump to win four more years of the presidency.

That will not happen. The GOP objections will fail in both the Senate and in the Democratic-controlled House.

Each chamber needs a majority of members to vote in favour of the objections to throw out the results. Just 24 GOP senators (less than a quarter of the chamber) and roughly 150 House Republicans (out of 435 total House members) have pledged to support the objections.

Vice President Mike Pence, who is presiding over Wednesday’s joint session of Congress, suspended it so each chamber could debate Mr Gosar’s objection and vote on it separately.

Senators and House members will have up to five minutes each — but not more than two hours in total — to address their colleagues before putting each objection to a vote.

The joint session commenced at 1pm on Wednesday with Congress unanimously affirming Donald Trump’s electoral victories in Alabama and Alaska, netting him 14 votes so far.

But by the time Congress has heard each GOP objection, Mr Biden will have won with 306 electoral votes to Mr Trump’s 232.

Wednesday’s joint session has made for a highly anticipated day of theatrics in Washington.

As Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota read Arizona’s submission giving Mr Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the state’s 11 electoral votes, hundreds of Trump supporters congregated outside the Capitol to protest Congress’ ongoing certification.

Several videos have already been circulating on the internet of pro-Trump protesters clashing with US Capitol Police just steps away from the Capitol entrance.

The president and his campaign team have been encouraging the massive gathering of his supporters in Washington.

Earlier Wednesday, Mr Trump made a final desperate plea to Mr Pence to block the certification of Mr Biden’s victory.

“States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval,” the president tweeted on Wednesday, repeating his false assertions of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

“All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!” Mr Trump wrote.

Mr Pence does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally block the electoral results, and he will accept Congress’ certification of the election, he affirmed in a statement on Wednesday, putting him squarely at odds with his boss for the last four years.

“It is my considered judgment than my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrained me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” the vice president wrote to members of Congress in a letter released minutes before gaveling in Wednesday’s joint session to certify the electoral tally.

Before the joint session kicked off, Mr Trump was headlining one of a few rallies in DC protesting his loss and pressuring his VP to try overturning the states’ certifications of their presidential votes.

Mr Trump said he would be “disappointed” if Mr Pence did not try sending some vote results “back to the states," arguing without evidence that some states’ Electoral College delegates were "defrauded" because they were alleged given data to vote on that contained illegal ballots.

As he and his legal team have done for weeks, however, the outgoing president did not provide any specific data to support his claims.

Nevertheless, Mr Trump called on Mr Pence to “do the right thing.”

But that means very different things for the two men, as Mr Pence will move forward on Wednesday certifying Mr Biden’s wins in Arizona and the other four states facing challenges.

The vice president has been Mr Trump’s most loyal ally for four years, rarely objecting in public or private to Mr Trump’s most bombastic statements or threats. Sources have said he hoped to follow Mr Trump as president with his own 2024 run following a second term as VP.

He has echoed his boss’s concerns about alleged voter fraud and irregularities at rallies, but has stopped short of saying he thinks Democrats cheated.