What time does Congress meet today and what happens if it objects to the electoral college?

Gino Spocchia
<p>US president Donald Trumps’s supporters will protest Congress joint session</p> (REUTERS)

US president Donald Trumps’s supporters will protest Congress joint session

(REUTERS)

The United States Congress will convene on Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden as the presidential election winner against Donald Trump.

It comes despite the US president mounting pressure on Republicans in congress, as well as vice president Mike Pence, whose roles in the confirmation are constitutionally set-out, to object.

Both the House and the Senate will convene together in one session - as mandated by the US constitution - in proceedings that are largely ceremonial.

By the end, and depending on any objections, the confirmation will conclude with Mr Biden as president-elect. That could come on Wednesday or Thursday.

Mike Pence, whose role is to read aloud states’ election results and announce Mr Biden as president-elect at the end, will preside over the meeting between both houses, which starts at 1pm.

As per the Twelfth Amendment, the votes must be read alphabetically by state by Mr Pence, who will receive sealed envelopes carried in mahogany, containing each states’ results.

But Mr Trump, beginning on Monday, had leaned on Mr Pence to reject the process, although the vice president is unable to do so.

At least a dozen Republican senators plan to challenge the results, which will come in the form of formal challenges as results are read out, one state at a time, by the vice president. It is expected that Arizona will be the first state whose results are challenged.

Six battleground states that had the smallest - although still substantial and already certified -margins between Mr Biden and Mr Trump - are all thought to be those that will attract rejections.

Up to two hours will then be set aside to debate each state that receives an objection from one House member and one senator, in what could lead to an all-night session.

In that situation, the House and Senate must temporarily split up to separately debate and vote on the objections.

A simple majority must be needed to uphold the objection in both the House and in the Senate, although the latter is divided.

Because of the Democrat’s majority in the House, it is unlikely any of the objections will disrupt the confirmation of Mr Biden - although it could take more than a day to conclude.

Read More

Mike Pence ‘has told Trump he cannot overturn election result’

Mike Pence heckled at Georgia rally to ‘do the right thing’

Pelosi urges Democrats to give ‘civics lesson’ in protecting democracy

Trump threatens Tom Cotton for not backing his election challenge

Paul Ryan calls Republicans anti-democratic and anti-conservative

Latest Stories

  • Will there be any fallout from Trump’s call to Raffensperger?

    President Trump's attempt to pressure Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the results of the election has prompted calls for impeachment and even criminal charges.

  • The Drudge Report thinks Democrats won both Georgia runoff races, control of the Senate

    The Associated Press still hasn't called either of Georgia's Senate races, but Matt Drudge is ready to project that Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have upset both Republican incumbents, demoting Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to minority leader.> Drudge tonight pic.twitter.com/A2qihCMf0M> > — Jon Passantino (@passantino) January 6, 2021Warnock looks very likely to win, with a 36,000-vote lead and nearly all ballots counted, but Ossoff and Perdue are basically tied. "As of Wednesday morning," AP says, "it was too early to call the close races." But since most of the thousands of outstanding votes are in solidly Democratic counties, the Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman predicted that not only would Ossoff beat Perdue, he would likely do so by enough to avoid a recount.> It's not yet assured Ossoff's victory will end up outside GA's 0.5% recount threshold, but it's likely. GASEN> > — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) January 6, 2021The New York Times election needles concur.> Per the needles ... pic.twitter.com/6fRZKx6fLr> > — Scott Wilson (@RScottWilson) January 6, 2021If both Warnock and Ossoff win, the Senate will be tied 50-50. And with Vice President Kamala Harris as the deciding vote, Democrats would be in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress.More stories from theweek.com 7 scathing cartoons about Trump's Georgia phone call Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? What will, and might, happen if Democrats sweep Georgia races for a 50-50 Senate

  • Facing Sexual Assault Charges, Air Force Colonel Heads to Court-Martial

    The Air Force brought charges against McNamara in October following an investigation that began in 2019.

  • Why Republicans in Congress Shouldn’t Object to Electoral College Certification

    Many people I love, trust, and represent in Wisconsin believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. This is a serious claim that deserves serious consideration. It is doubly serious when the desired remedy amounts to Congress overturning the outcome of the election. That is exactly what successfully objecting to the certification of key Electoral College electors for Joe Biden would do. Many of my House and Senate colleagues are prepared to take this step. I am not.I endorsed and campaigned hard for President Trump. I have also spent the last two months investigating claims of election fraud. I have found real deficiencies in our voting processes in Wisconsin that must be fixed. Nonetheless, Joe Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes, and that margin has survived multiple court challenges.Contesting the certified electors also raises a larger question: Can Congress retroactively overrule the states when it comes to certifying their elections? The answer is no. The Framers of the Constitution did not trust the federal government with that power.The objectors disagree. They point to the Electors Clause in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution. It specifies that each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Therefore, the reasoning goes, if courts or election commissions fail to follow a state’s election laws to the letter, then Congress can rule an election unconstitutional and overturn it.Trump-appointed federal judges in Wisconsin, and on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, have convincingly argued that this is a distortion of the Electors Clause, one that would also require us to reject Republican elector slates in states like Texas where governors changed voting processes amidst the pandemic. It would also require members of Congress to reject our own elections, since we were on the same ballots, even after we have taken the oath of office. That creates a real dilemma: How can Congress vote to decertify the results of the very election that created it? The argument from the objectors renders the entire federal government inert. Like a snake eating its own tail, would we even exist as a Congress in this paradoxical scenario?If state legislatures have been injured or ignored by renegade governors, election commissions, and courts, they could contest their respective states’ slates of electors. Yet not a single legislative chamber, including those controlled by Republicans, has done so. Many of my fellow Republicans have had informal meetings in hallways and Holiday Inns to discuss objecting. But not a single chamber in any of the 50 states has been willing to override the will of its voters based on evidence of fraud. Their silence consents to the Electoral College count.Moreover, the idea that Congress — not the people in the states — gets to choose the president and the vice president would surprise the Framers. It would stun millions of Americans, as well as all of the American citizens who have voted in federal elections since the beginning of this Republic. The Constitution lays out a single circumstance in which Congress gets to pick the president: If no candidate receives a majority of the duly certified Electoral College vote, then the House picks the president based on state delegations. Selectively decertifying states to throw the election into the House is not a clever workaround. I have scoured The Federalist Papers, the history of the Electoral Count Act, and Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention. I cannot find any evidence to support the objectors’ approach as a legitimate means of presidential selection. It is constitutional nihilism.The objectors are going down a dangerous path of vast federal overreach. By even forcing debate today, they are endorsing the pernicious idea that Congress, not the states, is the right forum for litigating -- or even worse, relitigating -- an election. This is an extremely progressive interpretation of the Constitution. It gives the federal government enormous new powers to regulate how states conduct elections, something the Left has sought for half a century. Until now, conservatives have rightly fought back against this line of legal reasoning. Yet the objectors would throw it all away for a few hours of primetime debate that they concede is unlikely to change the outcome.The objectors also point out that the Democrats objected first, and so turnabout is fair play. It is true that Democrats bootlessly objected to certified Electoral College counts in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. Their conduct was disgraceful, and Republicans rightfully shamed them for normalizing end-runs around the Constitution. But just because Democrats violated norms does not mean that Republicans should follow suit, especially when it will achieve nothing other than endorsing unlimited congressional supervision over election outcomes. Allowing a handful of people working in the federal government to choose a president borrows from the cynical playbook of the Left, and it is a recipe for Republican defeat in future elections.Still, the objectors say we must “fight” today, lest we lose the country forever to tyranny. But what are conservatives sent to Washington to fight in the first place, if not the tyranny of the federal government? How do you fight illiberalism with illiberalism? What are conservatives fighting for, if not the idea that the states and the people get to govern themselves? This is the core of what conservatives are trying to conserve. But it is precisely this idea to which the objectors object.

  • 21-Year-Old Woman Becomes the Youngest Mayor in India’s History

    A 21-year-old Indian politician and college student has officially become the youngest mayor in India’s history on Dec. 28. Arya Rajendran won 54 votes out of the 100-member Council in December and is now the mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, a city and the capital of Kerala, India, according to The Hindu. Rajendran is a member of the Councilor of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), an alliance of left-wing political parties, which includes the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

  • Republicans are 'privately furious' at Trump over the Georgia election losses

    Republicans on Wednesday are reeling over the loss of one, probably two Senate seats in Georgia on Tuesday. If Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff flip both Senate seats, as now expected, the Democrats will take control of the Senate on Jan. 20. And "Republicans, who enabled President Trump with their silence and compliance, are privately furious with him for blowing their Senate majority," Mike Allen reports at Axios. "It's a fitting and predictable end to Trump's reign.""In four years, Trump has lost his presidency, and the House and the Senate for the GOP," Marc Caputo notes at Politico. And "while Trump has a phoenix-like ability to rise from the ashes of his norm-shattering outrages, others just become ash." The "blame game is already burning within the GOP," he adds, but aside from Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling — who blamed Trump on CNN — most Republicans "are criticizing Trump anonymously.""Trump is the cause of this, lock, stock, and barrel," one Republican strategist told Politico. "But when you're relying on someone to win you a Senate race that also lost statewide eight weeks prior, you're not in a position of strength." A senior Senate GOP aide, when asked why Republicans lost on Tuesday, said, "Donald J. Trump." Some Trump allies pushed back, blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for refusing to hold a vote on $2,000 stimulus checks. The Republican candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, also took friendly fire.But many "top Republicans blame Trump for sabotaging what should have been two easy wins — turning off suburban voters with his chaos and craziness, and sowing distrust of the Peach State election machinery with base voters," Axios' Allen writes. Still, "as a curtain call for Trumpism, approximately a dozen senators and 100+ House Republicans today will publicly support an idea that many of them think is idiotic and doomed to fail, as they protest congressional certification of President-elect Biden's victory."More stories from theweek.com 7 scathing cartoons about Trump's Georgia phone call Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? What will, and might, happen if Democrats sweep Georgia races for a 50-50 Senate

  • China says delay to WHO Covid investigation 'not just about visas'

    China has played down concerns that a World Health Organisation mission had been blocked from investigating the origins of Covid-19, saying discussions on access are still taking place amid a spike in local infections. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing in Beijing that the problem was "not just about visas" for the team. The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Tuesday he was "very disappointed" that China had not authorised the entry of the team for the investigation, which he said was a priority. Much about the origins of Covid-19 remains unknown, and China has been sensitive about any suggestion that it could have done more in the early stages of the pandemic to stop it. Ms Hua said there had been a "misunderstanding" and the two sides were still in discussions over the timing and other arrangements and "remain in close communication", adding: "There's no need to over-interpret this." China's experts were also busy dealing with a renewed spike in coronavirus infections, with many locations entering a "wartime footing" to stop the virus, she said. More than 400 infections have been recorded in recent weeks after a cluster erupted in Beijing, seen as an embarrassment for a country that has sought to get to zero cases.

  • Your stimulus check might be delayed if you filed your taxes with an online tax preparer

    Stimulus payments may be delayed for as many as 14 million customers, the IRS and major tax prep software companies warned.

  • Doctor Resigns After 20 Years Over Seattle Children's Hospital's Alleged Use of the N-Word, Japs

    A doctor quit his post in protest due to the alleged racism at Seattle Children’s Hospital, the establishment that oversees the clinic he once worked for. Broken institution: Dr. Ben Danielson, the former medical director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic, revealed in an interview with Crosscut that the hospital is "replete with racism and a disregard for people who don’t look like them in leadership." One minority colleague was fired “without explanation,” while another claimed she was pushed into resigning from her leadership post.

  • UN chief recommends Libya cease-fire monitors based in Sirte

    Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is recommending that international monitors be deployed to Libya under a U.N. umbrella to observe the October cease-fire agreement from a base in the strategic city of Sirte, the gateway to the country's major oil fields and export terminals. The U.N. chief said in an interim report to the Security Council on proposed cease-fire monitoring arrangements circulated Monday that an advance team should be sent to Libya’s capital Tripoli as a first step to “provide the foundations for a scalable United Nations cease-fire monitoring mechanism based in Sirte.”

  • Georgia election official says if Perdue or Loeffler loses, it's due to 'Trump and his actions'

    Gabriel Sterling is Georgia's Republican voting systems manager, and during an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, he said if one or both of the Republican Senate candidates loses their runoff election, they can blame President Trump."I'll speak outside of my role working for the state," he said. "This is a personal opinion that it will fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since Nov. 3rd."Trump has spent the last two months claiming, without any evidence, that the election was stolen from him. He lost Georgia to President-elect Joe Biden, and on Saturday asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes for him to overturn the results. By constantly making false accusations and telling people "your vote doesn't count, it's been stolen ... people start to believe that," Sterling said.The president has been trying to "trigger a civil war inside the Republican Party," Sterling declared, and he believes Trump has successfully divided the GOP. "The thing now is, no matter what you say, you can't undermine the people of Georgia's integrity to know the voting system works and their vote is going to count at the end of the day, one way or the other, how this election comes out," Sterling said.More stories from theweek.com 7 scathing cartoons about Trump's Georgia phone call Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? What will, and might, happen if Democrats sweep Georgia races for a 50-50 Senate

  • 11 Storage Beds to Keep You Organized in 2021

    Read on for space-saving, clutter-clearing magicOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • China is desperate to control the narrative of Covid-19's origin - whatever the cost

    International experts from the World Health Organisation trying to investigate the origins of the coronavirus in China, a year after it first emerged in the central city of Wuhan, continue to run into roadblocks. The delay for the WHO mission – already plagued by politics and posturing – adds to persistent worries that China will whitewash and frustrate the investigation. Indeed, a two-person WHO team on a three-week mission last August, aimed at laying out plans for further study, sat through a 14-day quarantine upon arrival and never visited Wuhan. This comes as Beijing engages in a relentless propaganda campaign to distract from its cover-up and rewrite the narrative – all aimed at claiming the coronavirus originated outside China. Officials have seeded a number of conspiracy theories, including blaming the US military for infecting China. The most recent theory flouted is to label imported frozen seafood as the culprit. Foreign minister Wang Yi has gone so far as to claim the virus emerged in many countries, and that China was simply the first to spot it. “We raced to report the epidemic first,” he told state media. Mr Wang’s comments are a far cry from the experiences of doctors, including the late Li Wenliang and Ai Fen, both of whom were reprimanded by Chinese authorities after discovering coronavirus infections in December 2018 and seeking to warn colleagues.

  • U.S. attorney in Virginia announces resignation

    The leader of one of the country's most prominent U.S. attorney's offices said Tuesday he is resigning after almost three years of prosecuting terrorists, spies and political operatives.

  • UPS worker seen on racist rant video while delivering to a Latino household is fired

    "This is about the things people do when they think no one is watching them," said the mother of a young Latino police officer who lives in the house.

  • 70 percent of Covid shots in the US have not been administered - these states have lowest vaccination rate

    Kansas has vaccinated fewest people per capita so far, South Dakota is on top

  • Trailing behind Warnock, Loeffler says she still has 'a path to victory'

    Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) told supporters on Tuesday night that she's certain she'll be able to gain enough votes to defeat her Democratic challenger, the Rev. Raphael Warnock.With 97 percent of the vote in, Warnock is ahead of Loeffler by nearly 36,000 votes. "This is a game of inches," she said during a brief speech. "We're gonna win this election. We're gonna save this country." Loeffler declared that she still has "a path to victory," and will make sure "every legal vote" is counted.Loeffler was appointed to her seat in late 2019, after Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned due to health issues. She announced Monday night that she will join Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republican senators in objecting to the formal Electoral College vote count on Wednesday. They are doing this at the behest of President Trump, who has falsely claimed the election was fraudulent. During her Tuesday night speech, Loeffler said she will head to Washington, D.C., in the morning so she can "fight for this president."More stories from theweek.com 7 scathing cartoons about Trump's Georgia phone call Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? What will, and might, happen if Democrats sweep Georgia races for a 50-50 Senate

  • Italian pasta company apologises for 'fascist' rigatoni named after former colony Ethiopia

    A leading Italian pasta maker has apologised for naming one of its products after Ethiopia, raking up memories of the country’s inglorious colonial past in the Horn of Africa country. The rigatoni pasta, named Abissine in Italian, appeared to be an ill-considered nod to a tradition from the 1920s and '30s of naming pasta after Italy’s colonies, including Tripoline and Bengasine, after Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya, and Abissine after Abyssinia, Ethiopia's former name. The firm, La Molisana, said it was sorry for having “recalled in an unacceptable way a dramatic page” in Italian history. Italy attempted to invade and occupy Ethiopia in 1896 but its forces were defeated at the Battle of Adowa. Under Mussolini, a second attempt was made, leading to a brutal conflict in the 1930s that saw the Italians kill thousands with mustard gas and aerial bombardments. Italy occupied the country from 1935-41, when it became part of the Italian East Africa colony. La Molisana, based in the Molise region of southern Italy, said that it would change the name of the pasta to “conchiglie” – Italian for shells, in reference to the shape of the product. The firm’s apology was welcomed by the National Association of Partisans, which represents the guerrilla fighters who battled Italian Fascist and German forces during the Second World War. Michele Petraroia, the head of the association in Molise, said the pasta company had a proud tradition of standing up to fascism, recalling that its factory had been destroyed by retreating Axis forces during the war. “Nevertheless, it was appropriate that La Molisana should clarify that it has nothing to do with fascism.” Italy underwent less of a reckoning with its dark past than Germany and there is still a vocal minority of Italians who openly praise the fascist era.

  • Woman clings to hood of speeding car to try to stop theft of $10,000 puppy

    Late last month, a felony charge was filed against the woman who was allegedly driving the car in the theft.

  • White House denies Trump planning Scotland trip after Sturgeon tells him he’s not allowed to visit because of Covid

    Country’s first minister warned that playing golf was not ‘essential purpose’ in lockdown