On Wednesday, the latest extraordinary development in an extraordinary election will unfold.In a joint session of Congress designed as a ceremonial affirmation to President-elect Joe Biden's victory, some Republicans — but hardly all of them — are vowing to object to voting results in one or more states. Despite no evidence, they accuse the elections of being fraudulent.Though their actions — at least outwardly — are designed to aid President Donald Trump's efforts to stay in office, the efforts face near-certain failure even as they carve an even deeper divide in the American public sphere. Lisa Mascaro, congressional correspondent for The Associated Press, has been covering Congress since 2010 and is waist-deep in the current, extraordinary saga. Here, she breaks down exactly what's going to happen Wednesday — and why it is highly unlikely to change anything related to Biden's impending inauguration.___WHY WON'T IT WORK? This effort is all but certain to fail. The main reason is that there's a robust bipartisan majority in both the House and the Senate to accept the results of the election as they've been certified by the states.So the challenge that's being mounted comes from about a dozen Republican senators — I think we're up to 13 now — and as many as 100 House Republicans. But there are a total of 535 members of Congress (minus a few vacancies). Those are the numbers. Democrats have the majority in the house. They will almost certainly agree with the results from the states that Biden won the election. Republicans are very split over this effort. Trump's efforts to challenge the results has splintered the party in ways we have not seen. The votes Wednesday will show that. This really is a time unlike any other in the Capitol.HOW DID WE GET HERE?Under the Constitution, the Electoral College is the way the votes are counted. Laws have been enacted to govern this process — and a joint session of Congress is sort of the final confirmation.We don't have a national election. The states confirm the results and the states determine the electors and then send that tally up to Washington. So the House and Senate will convene for this session at 1 p.m. — all the lawmakers gathered in the House chamber to confirm the election results. And that's that Joe Biden won. Even William Barr, Trump's attorney general until last month, has said he found no evidence of fraud on a wide scale that could change the outcome. The outcomes have been repeatedly certified by state officials.That said, a number of Republicans are taking the president's challenge and splitting the party on this issue.WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS CONVENES? There are about six states that the Republicans concerned about the elections want to challenge.What's going to happen is that results from the states will be brought in in envelopes, and Vice President Mike Pence will open them and read the tallies. As he does, any member can object. And some will. But for any challenge to have currency, it has to have a member of the House and a member of the Senate join in writing.Right now, we have only a few senators saying they will join any of this in writing. One of the first states to be challenged is expected to be Arizona. A number of House Republicans will challenge that. And Ted Cruz, a senator on the Republican side, has said he will challenge it. If there's a challenge, the proceedings come to a halt.The senators will go back to the Senate and deliberate, and the House members will stay in the house and deliberate. Each will have two hours of deliberation. And then they'll vote and they'll come back together and explain their vote. So this is expected to be a very long day.WHY SO LONG? In the Senate, the Republicans are split. So even though they have a majority, they're not all part of this group of a dozen or so who are willing to challenge the election.When the lawmakers come back in the joint session, we'll see that the challenge for Arizona is likely to fail. And we'll see this over and over through the day — Arizona, Pennsylvania, possibly Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin.The only other state we know for sure there'll be a challenge in is Pennsylvania. Sen. Josh Hawley has said he'll challenge it. But the Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, has said he will not challenge it.If all these states are challenged, that's many hours of debate. The leadership is expected to try to make certain there's an outcome — that they stay until the process is finished, even if that means working through the night and coming back the next day. The leadership is set to make sure this gets finished.WHAT'S THE PRECEDENT FOR THIS? Other vice presidents have also had to preside over their own defeats.Vice President Al Gore was presiding over the chamber in 2001 over the disputed 2000 election. He, too, had to sign off on the tally that essentially prevented him from becoming president. Lawmakers have made challenges before, but nothing on the scope we expect to see this time. So we're in extraordinary, unprecedented times here.

Congress is resuming its joint session after a dramatic and unprecedented day saw a mob of violent protesters storm the U.S. Capitol building.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to open the proceeding in the Senate at 8 p.m. The Senate originally suspended its deliberations after chanting protesters gained entry to the Capitol, prompting police to lock down the building. Some lawmakers tweeted that they were sheltering in place. Thousands of pro-Trump protesters rallied in the nation's capital, answering appeals by Trump himself, who addressed supporters gathered outside the White House.Earlier in the day, McConnell urged fellow Republicans to abandon their effort to overrule President-elect Joe Biden's election triumph, directly rebuking defeated President Donald Trump and asserting that the GOP drive threatened the country's democratic foundations.“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken,” said McConnell, R-Ky., as the Senate debated a challenge by a handful of GOP lawmakers to the 11 electoral votes that Arizona cast for Biden. “They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.”Arizona's were the first of several states’ electoral votes that some Republicans are challenging, encouraged by Trump’s groundless charges that the election was riddled with fraud. Congress seemed certain to reject all those challenges and formally affirm Biden’s victory. All 50 states have certified the electoral votes.The showdown came on one of the most convulsive days in the country's recent political history.Follow along below for updates: 8:35 p.m.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says President Donald Trump “bears a great deal of the blame” after a mob loyal to him stormed the U.S. Capitol.As the Senate reconvened to count electoral votes that will confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s win, Schumer said that Jan. 6, 2021, will “live forever in infamy” and will be a stain on the democracy.Schumer said the events “did not happen spontaneously.”He said Wednesday: “The president, who promoted conspiracy theories that motivated these thugs, the president, who exhorted them to come to our nation’s capital, egged them on.”Trump has falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the election to explain away his defeat.Schumer says the protesters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.8:25 p.m.U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, says the Senate will set a peaceful example and move toward the certification of the election result, showing Joe Biden will become the next president. Lankford was among the group of senators who vowed to reject the Electoral College tallies unless Congress launched a commission to audit the election results.8 p.m. The Senate has resumed debating the Republican challenge against Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, more than six hours after pro-Trump mobs attacked the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee.Scores of Republican representatives and 13 GOP senators had planned to object Wednesday to the electoral votes of perhaps six states that backed Biden. It was unclear whether those objections would continue in light of the day’s violent events.President Donald Trump has falsely insisted that the election was marred by fraud and that he actually won. He reiterated those claims in remarks to thousands of protesters outside the White House early Wednesday and goaded them to march to the Capitol, which many of them did.The mayhem had forced the House and Senate to abruptly end the day’s debates and flee to safety under the protection of police. And it prompted bipartisan outrage as many lawmakers blamed Trump for fostering the violence.

Georgia's secretary of state certified the results of the two U.S. Senate runoff elections Tuesday, paving the way for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to be sworn in and for Democrats to take control of the chamber.They'll take office just as the Senate considers whether to convict President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial for inciting the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol and as President-elect Joe Biden seeks to jump-start his agenda after inauguration. The two men are set to be sworn in to office Wednesday afternoon shortly after Biden's inauguration, according to news releases issued by each. The certification by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger officially seals Warnock and Ossoff's victories over their Republican opponents in the Jan. 5 runoffs. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both incumbents, conceded days after the election. Shortly after certification by Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on their certificates of election.Official results from the secretary of state show Warnock beating Loeffler by about 93,000 votes out of nearly 4.5 million cast, or about 2%, while Ossoff beat Perdue by about 55,000 votes, or 1.2%. Both margins are larger than the .5% required to ask for a recount under Georgia law.Once Warnock and Ossoff are sworn in, there will be a 50-50 partisan divide in the Senate, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote.Warnock will be the first African American senator from Georgia, while Ossoff will be the state's first Jewish senator and the Senate's youngest sitting member. Their wins bookend a divisive and drawn-out election cycle that brought seismic shifts to Georgia politics and made the once reliably red state a key battleground.Biden in November became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992, while Warnock and Ossoff are the first Democrats to win a U.S. Senate election in Georgia since 2000.During their nationally watched overtime races, Warnock and Ossoff benefited from Trump's continued false attacks on Georgia's election results, which contributed to lower GOP turnout, as well as intense mobilization efforts by Democratic organizers. Perdue, who served one term after being elected in 2014, and Loeffler, who took office last year after being appointed to replace retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson, were among Trump's closest allies in the Senate. The Democrats, who essentially ran as a team during the runoffs, head to Washington at a time of tumult but also opportunity for their party.In addition to considering whether to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, the Senate will also begin considering confirmation of Biden appointments and early legislative proposals from the new administration. Biden recently unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan that aims to administer 100 million vaccines by the 100th day of his administration and deliver another round of economic aid.Loeffler gave a farewell speech from the Senate floor Tuesday, where she thanked her supporters and wished Warnock well. She also took parting shots at her detractors, slamming what she called "cancel culture" and news media coverage of her campaign.Perdue's term ended Jan. 3, while Loeffler remains in the Senate until Warnock is sworn in because she was appointed to fill Isakson's unexpired term.

ATLANTA —

Georgia's secretary of state certified the results of the two U.S. Senate runoff elections Tuesday, paving the way for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to be sworn in and for Democrats to take control of the chamber.

They'll take office just as the Senate considers whether to convict President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial for inciting the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol and as President-elect Joe Biden seeks to jump-start his agenda after inauguration.

The two men are set to be sworn in to office Wednesday afternoon shortly after Biden's inauguration, according to news releases issued by each.

The certification by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger officially seals Warnock and Ossoff's victories over their Republican opponents in the Jan. 5 runoffs. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both incumbents, conceded days after the election. Shortly after certification by Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on their certificates of election.

Official results from the secretary of state show Warnock beating Loeffler by about 93,000 votes out of nearly 4.5 million cast, or about 2%, while Ossoff beat Perdue by about 55,000 votes, or 1.2%. Both margins are larger than the .5% required to ask for a recount under Georgia law.

Once Warnock and Ossoff are sworn in, there will be a 50-50 partisan divide in the Senate, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote.

Warnock will be the first African American senator from Georgia, while Ossoff will be the state's first Jewish senator and the Senate's youngest sitting member. Their wins bookend a divisive and drawn-out election cycle that brought seismic shifts to Georgia politics and made the once reliably red state a key battleground.

Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

Biden in November became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992, while Warnock and Ossoff are the first Democrats to win a U.S. Senate election in Georgia since 2000.

During their nationally watched overtime races, Warnock and Ossoff benefited from Trump's continued false attacks on Georgia's election results, which contributed to lower GOP turnout, as well as intense mobilization efforts by Democratic organizers.

Perdue, who served one term after being elected in 2014, and Loeffler, who took office last year after being appointed to replace retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson, were among Trump's closest allies in the Senate.

The Democrats, who essentially ran as a team during the runoffs, head to Washington at a time of tumult but also opportunity for their party.

In addition to considering whether to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, the Senate will also begin considering confirmation of Biden appointments and early legislative proposals from the new administration. Biden recently unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan that aims to administer 100 million vaccines by the 100th day of his administration and deliver another round of economic aid.

Loeffler gave a farewell speech from the Senate floor Tuesday, where she thanked her supporters and wished Warnock well. She also took parting shots at her detractors, slamming what she called "cancel culture" and news media coverage of her campaign.

Perdue's term ended Jan. 3, while Loeffler remains in the Senate until Warnock is sworn in because she was appointed to fill Isakson's unexpired term.

The Biden administration is still struggling to answer basic questions about whether it can successfully evacuate tens of thousands of Americans and vulnerable Afghans in a race against a ticking clock ahead of the U.S. military's Aug. 31 Afghanistan withdrawal date.On Tuesday, U.S. officials across the government provided some details about plans for the massive U.S. evacuation. But many key specifics remain unanswered, including exactly how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, how many Afghans the U.S. military believes it can evacuate and whether the plan will extend beyond the withdrawal deadline just two weeks away.At a White House briefing, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. is relying on a commitment from the Taliban to allow for safe passage to the airport in Kabul, though it's still unclear whether the Taliban will allow Americans — let alone Afghan citizens trying to escape — to reach the airport.In an interview with CNN Tuesday morning, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby would not say whether the U.S. military was prepared to "go out into the countryside" to aid those who need to reach to Kabul, acknowledging the military was only operating at the airport.Also on Tuesday, U.S. officials gave differing answers about how many Americans remain in Afghanistan. Kirby said Tuesday morning it was 5,000 to 10,000, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in the afternoon that it was in fact 11,000, while congressional aides were told by State Department and Pentagon officials the number was actually between 10,000 and 15,000, according to three sources familiar with the briefings.Some Americans were told to head to the airport, while others were instructed to continue sheltering in place.The Biden administration has yet to put a number on how many Afghans it expects to evacuate — there were roughly 20,000 applicants in the Special Immigrant Visa program pipeline as of mid-July, in addition to their families and other vulnerable Afghans seeking to escape — and where these Afghans will be relocated.The rush of people trying to evacuate as the Taliban swiftly took control of Kabul over the weekend led to chaotic scenes at the airport Monday of people desperately trying to escape, including several falling to their deaths as they clung to the departing aircraft. The U.S. military since gained control of the security situation at the airport, but things outside remained frantic Tuesday, with a crush of people at the gate still trying to get inside.In another sign of chaos, Afghan passports of visa applicants at the U.S. embassy were destroyed amid the rapid U.S. closure of the facility, one lawmaker said.A commitment from the TalibanAfter facing sharp criticism for not prioritizing evacuations of vulnerable Afghans more quickly in the weeks after he announced the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan in April, President Joe Biden has made the hurried evacuation a priority for the military's final mission before its drawdown is complete.The Biden administration says it is doing everything it can, but officials won't give clear goals for how many people they want to get out of the country given the chaotic environment.It's also still unclear whether Biden would keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond Aug. 31 if needed to continue the evacuations. Sullivan, who faced 45 minutes of questions from the White House podium Tuesday about the Biden administration's plans in Afghanistan, said the U.S. was talking to the Taliban about the exact timetable. He declined to say whether the U.S. was considering extending the withdrawal beyond the end of the month."I'm not going to comment on hypotheticals. I'll stay focused on the task at hand, getting as many people out as rapidly as possible and take that day by day," Sullivan said. "The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport and we intend to hold them to that commitment."Sullivan reiterated in a tweet Tuesday evening the U.S. intended to evacuate all Americans from Afghanistan.But with Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban, it remains unclear precisely how many Afghans the administration can and will evacuate, and who will ultimately qualify for those government flights.Evacuation plan still coming togetherThe State Department is still determining how to prioritize evacuations on U.S. military flights as it still scrambling to put together a list of Afghans to be evacuated under the SIV program and through other visas.Two sources familiar with the discussions said the U.S. plans to evacuate American citizens, followed by Afghans with visas, Afghan SIV applicants with chief of mission approval and general Afghan SIV applicants.U.S. officials at the airport continue to work out a plan for who gets evacuated amid the chaos of Afghans clamoring to leave, one source said.There are tens of thousands of Afghans who have applied for the Afghan SIV program, and processing their applications can take years.The first tranche of U.S. citizens were notified to get to the Kabul airport for an evacuation flight, but the State Department said others should remain sheltered in place until they receive instructions to depart.Those Americans are spread out all over the country, and the officials said it is now up to those citizens to find their own way to Kabul airport — the officials insisted they had been "messaging" to U.S. citizens to depart Afghanistan "for a long time," and that many had decided not to try to leave sooner.Asked about those who have been notified about flights but cannot get to the airport, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday, "If they feel that it is unsafe for them to make their way to the airport, they should not seek to do so."We will continue to do all we can to, and we will continue to be in touch with them, I should say, to provide clear guidance about when and how they should make their way to the airport compound," Price added.U.S. officials said they've made clear to the Taliban not to interfere with the U.S. evacuation efforts, though they acknowledged there have been reports of people being turned away or even beaten. Still, Sullivan answered "yes" when asked if he believed the Taliban's commitment and said by and large Afghans have been able to get to the airport.Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, visited the Kabul airport on Tuesday, saying that operations were being rapidly scaled up. "In meetings with Taliban senior leaders in Doha on Sunday, I cautioned them against interference in our evacuation, and made it clear to them that any attack would be met with overwhelming force in the defense of our forces," McKenzie said.The Pentagon said Tuesday it expects to be able to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 passengers per day once the evacuation at the airport is running at full steam. U.S. military flights on Tuesday "evacuated approximately more than 1,000 people, including 330 U.S. citizens and permanent residents," Price said in a statement Tuesday.Price said the U.S. has "evacuated more than 3,000 people so far, including our personnel," and has relocated nearly 2,000 Afghan special immigrants to the United States.'We are going to have to take people'In the U.S., congressional offices have been fielding a multitude calls from constituents with relatives and friends at various stages of the visa process who are now desperately trying to leave Afghanistan, as well as U.S. citizens who are stuck and unsure if they can get beyond Taliban checkpoints to make it to the airport.The office of Rep. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, told visa applicants visa and passport appointments at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, which has been closed and move to the airport, had been canceled — and that passports in the embassy's possession had been destroyed, seemingly making it more difficult for those Afghans to be able to leave the country.The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about the passports. It is unclear why the passports were destroyed but it is possible that diplomats determined that it would have been dangerous for the documents to fall into the hands of the Taliban, who could then target those Afghans."We are going to have to take people without passports and vet them in other ways, like with their phone numbers for example, said Rep. Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat and former State official. "Any Afghans braving the trip to the airport will not have wanted to go there with identifying documents, anyway."Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, said his office has opened more than 70 cases for constituents with relatives and friends stuck in Afghanistan in the SIV program trying to escape, and his aides are trying to get them into the system for processing."What we're trying to press upon the State Department and other federal agencies is, let's not be overly concerned about documentation, some of these people fled without their documents and we need to focus on getting as many of the people involved out of their as quickly as we can," Connolly told CNN.'Nobody thought this was going to happen'In the meantime, Afghans who worked for the U.S. are living in fear, desperate to try to get themselves and their loved ones to safety.Ahmad Shah Mohibi, who worked in Afghanistan as a translator with the U.S. military, says he's trying to evacuate his parents. Although they received preliminary visa approval, the process has been slow, and it was delayed even further by curtailing of services at the U.S. Embassy. Now, with the embassy operating out of the airport with only limited staff, it's unclear how the State Department will handle their case.Mohibi was 16 years old when he began working with the U.S. military at Camp Phoenix in Kabul. He provided an identity document that showed his age as 19, he said. He had learned English by taking classes and by memorizing manuals his father brought home from his work.Now based in the U.S., he has tried in recent years to persuade his parents to leave Afghanistan, he says."My mom is scared of airplanes," he says. "Nobody thought this was going to happen like this."Mohibi says he's also applied for visas for other family members in Afghanistan, but those are on a slower track under U.S. visa rules that could take years.His fears for his family are real because the Taliban seem to know who he is. The Taliban spokesman blocked him on Twitter because he has spoken out about civilian atrocities the group has carried out in its drive to retake power.

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