America's incumbent President Donald Trump urged Vice-President Mike Pence to send electoral college votes back to the states amid crucial certification of presidential election results which is scheduled for Wednesday.
"Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
According to the US president, states were willing to "correct their votes" amid claims of election irregularities and fraud. Trump has refused to concede presidential victory to Joe Biden, despite his win being confirmed by Electoral College voters on 14 December.
States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021
The president's supporters are currently holding a "Save America" rally in Washington DC, where Trump is expected to appear.
6 January is the day when two chambers of the US Congress are scheduled to hold a joint session to certify 3 November results. Pence, as president of the Senate, will thus be the one to validate Joe Biden's victory.
Several Republicans are expected to oppose the results' certification, but their efforts are not anticipated to make a major difference, analysts have argued.
Neither is it believed that Pence's ceremonial role in the procedure will invest him with any real power to stop Joe Biden from being confirmed by Congress as President-elect just two weeks before his inauguration on 20 January.
But Trump disagrees: “The Vice-President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” the President wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
He later urged the vice-president "to come for us", claiming that many states wanted to "decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be)."
According to White House advisers, cited by Reuters, Pence was not planning to block Congress's certification of Joe Biden's victory. According to the New York Times, he has told the President so himself but this report had been dismissed by Trump as "fake news."
The Trump campaign has filed a number of lawsuits across the country to oppose election results that found Joe Biden to be the presidential winner in key battleground states. None of his legislative efforts have yielded him any positive result so far.
