Congress Affirms Joe Biden’s Victory Following Major Day in American History

Congress has formally ratified President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ victory in the 2020 election early on Thursday. The final stage of the election took place after violent scenes at the Capitol shut down debate on accepting Arizona’s Electoral College votes.

Vice President Mike Pence presided over the joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives as the appointed tellers from both chambers reported that Biden and Harris had won the election. This came despite some Republican objections.

It was widely expected that Republicans would force debate on several states’ slates of electors, and they did so with Arizona at the beginning of the process. However, following the storming of the Capitol by some of President Donald Trump’s supporters, debate had to be suspended.

When the process was resumed, some Republicans decided not to pursue objections despite previously issuing statements saying they would. The House and Senate divided to debate the results from Pennsylvania following a formal objection but neither chamber accepted the objection and the electors were accepted.

Following the ratification of results, Trump issued a statement via White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.

“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” the statement said.

Trump’s Twitter account remains locked and some of his tweets were deleted by the social media site overnight, with the company citing the violence at the Capitol.

Wednesday also saw historic Democratic victories in two Senate runoff elections in Georgia, which will hand control of both chambers of Congress to the party for the first two years of Biden’s term.