Georgia Senate races remain too close to call

WASHINGTON - Control of the Senate remained up in the air as at Tuesday night (Jan 5), with early vote counts indicating that Georgia's two run-off races were too close to call, while Washington braced itself for a day of high drama on Wednesday when Congress meets to count and announce President-elect Joe Biden's electoral college win.

The stakes are high in Georgia, where Democrats need to win both races to control the Senate and advance Mr Biden's agenda. Republicans need just one win to retain control of the Senate.

Meanwhile, Washington's drama, which will see internal Republican Party tensions erupt into the open as pro-Trump protesters take to the streets, will not change Mr Biden's 306 to 232 electoral college victory over Mr Trump.

Democrat challenger Raphael Warnock had a slight lead over Republican incumbent senator Kelly Loeffler, while her Republican colleague David Perdue was virtually tied with Democrat rival Jon Ossoff, as at 11.30pm on Tuesday.

According to the Associated Press, Mr Warnock had 50.4 per cent of the vote to Ms Loeffler's 49.6 per cent, while both Mr Perdue and Mr Ossoff had 50 per cent, with 95 of the vote reported.

The remaining votes to be counted come from the Atlanta metropolitan area, which leans Democrat.

Tensions will continue into Wednesday, when at 1pm, both the House of Representatives and Senate meet in a joint session to count the electoral votes, all of which have been lawfully certified by the states.

Mr Pence, as President of the Senate, will preside over a roll call of the 50 states and Washington, DC in alphabetical order.

Sealed certificates from each state, containing their electoral votes, will be opened and officially counted. If at least one senator and one member of the House of Representatives object to a state's results, both chambers will separately debate the objection and vote on whether to sustain it.

To overturn a result, both the House and the Senate must agree by a simple majority vote to do so.

So far, 13 Republican senators and around 140 Congressmen have said they will object to results, likely in at least six states that Mr Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Each state's debate can last up to two hours.

But 23 Republican senators said they would not join the objections, which are all but certain to fail, given the Democrats' control of the House.

Mr Trump has latched on to Mr Pence's role as the ceremony's presiding officer, seeing it as a last-ditch attempt to overturn his defeat, and stepped up pressure on him to do so.

"The vice-president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors," Mr Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, a statement that constitutional law experts say is false, as Mr Pence's role is ceremonial.

"The only responsibility and power of the vice-president under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast," former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig, a Republican, wrote on Twitter.

"The Constitution does not empower the vice-president to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise," he added.

Mr Pence reportedly told Mr Trump during their weekly lunch on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block Congress' certification of Mr Biden's victory, according to the New York Times.

Nonetheless, supporters of Mr Trump had begun gathering in Washington to protest what they believe is an attempt to steal an election he rightfully won. They will be joined on Wednesday, at least briefly, by Mr Trump.

The President announced on Twitter that he will speak at a rally at the Ellipse, in front of the White House, on Wednesday morning - two hours before Congress is due to start its joint session.

"Big crowds!" Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.