Hours after a group of supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed into the US Capitol in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, the House of Representatives and Senate (collectively called the Congress) finished counting votes of the Electoral College to confirm Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the November election.
Trump and his supporters had objected to the results in multiple states won by Biden. Vice President Mike Pence announced around 3.40am (local time) on Thursday that Biden had won 306 Electoral College votes and Trump had won 232 votes.
Shortly after confirmation by Congress, Trump issued a statement through his aide Dan Scavino, accepting the result. Twitter had suspended Trump's account.
"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. I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!,” Trump said.
The counting of three Electoral College votes from Vermont took Biden and running mate Kamala Harris over the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.
The last objection to fail was related to the Electoral College count in Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives. As many as 282 Representatives opposed the motion to object to the count, with only 138 voting in favour.
"The Senate and House rejected objections to throw out Georgia and Pennsylvania's electoral votes for Biden. Republicans also objected to Arizona, Nevada and Michigan's electoral votes, but the motions failed before they reached debate," CNN reported.
"Despite the disruption and objections from Republicans to election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, members from both chambers were able to certify the Electoral College more than 14 hours after the process began," NBC News reported. Biden is scheduled to be inaugurated as president on January 2020.
