Senate rejects GOP objection to Arizona’s Electoral College vote for Biden

‘It’s over,' Trump ally Lindsey Graham tells his colleagues on violent day in Washington

The Senate voted down a Republican objection to Arizona awarding its 11 Electoral College votes to Joe Biden following a dramatic series of speeches about a pro-Donald Trump mob storming the Capitol.

After angry Trump loyalists, after the president himself whipped them into a vandals frenzy at a midday rally near the White House, broke into the Capitol, several GOP senators rose in the chamber to announce they would drop plans to join any further House objections.

The final tally was 93-6 to reject the objection.

As the chamber wrapped its vote on the first – but possibly not last – objection, one of the 12 Senate objectors announced she would stand down, Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn. But over in the House, Mo Brooks of Alabama said it is his “constitutional” responsibility to object to what he called a fraudulent election. And Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said objecting is the “antidote” to the violent riot that saw a mob take over the House and Senate chamber for a time.

The House is expect to clear the Arizona objection around midnight, after which a joint session can resume.

It remains unclear if Mr Brooks will object to another state’s vote – and whether the required one senator will join him. If that happens, the chambers would again split up and debate and vote on that objection, and any others, separately.