What is Congress going to do on 6 January and can it change the election outcome?
Any challenge to the election is almost certain to fail on 6 January
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Your support makes all the difference.On 6 January, Congress will meet to count the votes submitted by the electors of each state and further confirm the president of the United States.
Joe Biden has 306 electoral votes, while Donald Trump has 232. Mr Biden has won the presidential election.
Mr Trump has been alleging - without evidence - that there was massive voter fraud, and that he is the actual victor of the election.
Nearly every court case lodged by the Trump campaign and his allies to challenge the election's results has been defeated. They have been defeated in state courts, federal courts and the Supreme Court.
His challenge will no doubt continue on 6 January when Congress meets to count the votes. However, the likelihood is that a challenge on the day the votes are counted is almost guaranteed to fail.
On the day of the count, Congress will meet in the House chambers, and Vice President Mike Pence will oversee the procedure. His role is mandatory and largely administrative; he unseals the votes and hands them off to tellers selected from House and Senate members to read aloud.
If there are objections to the count backed by both a member of the House and the Senate - which there almost certainly will be, as several House Republicans have indicated their intention to object - the legislative bodies will retire to their individual chambers to consider the objections.
The House and Senate may discuss the objections for no more than two hours, with members each receiving five minutes to voice their opinions on the objection. After that, each chamber will vote on the objection, which requires a simple majority to uphold. Both chambers must be in agreement in order for the objection to succeed.
How likely is it to succeed?
Challenges to the count - which will almost certainly occur - are extremely unlikely to succeed.
In order for an objection to succeed, a simple majority of the House - which is controlled by Democrats - would have to agree to the objection. Simply put, that will not happen.
Further, each challenge requires a Senator to agree to the objection if it is raised in the House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already acknowledged Mr Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and has urged senators not to object to the count on 6 January.
Thus far only Sen Tommy Tuberville, a former college football coach, has stated his intention to support challenges raised by the House.
Sen John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said that any attempt to challenge the results was almost certain to fail.
Last week, he told reporters that the idea of a challenge was not "going anywhere. It's going down like a shot dog."
Mr Thune's colourful assessment of the likelihood of success by Mr Trump's loyalists in the House attracted the president's attention. He tweeted about Mr Thune.
"South Dakota doesn't like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!" he tweeted.
The entire challenge hinges on the use of the 12th Amendment. Under that amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887, if the electoral college count is contested and there is no clear majority, the task of selecting the president falls to the House.
Each House delegation - not member - would get one vote to cast for president. Though the House is controlled by the Democrats, there are more Republican states - 27 - than Democratic ones. Should the Republicans vote in favour of Mr Trump, he would be named the winner of the election in that scenario.
However, it is unlikely that that situation would arise, as it is almost certain the House will not vote in favour of turning over any state electoral decisions, which will leave Mr Biden the winner.
Though the situation is highly unlikely to succeed, it could drag the proceedings out for hours depending on the number of complaints lodged.
Conditions outside the House chambers are likely to be much more volatile than inside the chambers; Mr Trump has called for his supporters to flood the nation's capital on 6 January for a "very big" and "very wild" protest while Congress counts the votes.
The US National Parks Service has not yet granted the permit for the protest to its organisers.
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