Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced Wednesday that he will object next week when Congress convenes to certify the Electoral College vote, a move that will force a floor debate before President-elect Joe Biden's victory is cemented.
Congress will gather next week in a joint session, where Vice President Mike Pence as the presiding officer will read aloud the results of this month's Electoral College vote confirming Biden won the November election.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that the ceremonial milestone offered a last-ditch way to reverse the election results.
When Congress convenes to certify the Electoral College results, any lawmaker can object to a state's votes on any grounds. But the objection is not taken up unless it is in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate.
When there is such a request, then the joint session suspends and the House and Senate go into separate sessions to consider it. For the objection to be sustained, both chambers must agree to it by a simple majority vote. If they disagree, the original electoral votes are counted.
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The last time such an objection was considered was 2005, when Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, both Democrats, objected to Ohio's electoral votes by claiming there were voting irregularities. Both chambers debated the objection and rejected it. It was only the second time such a vote had occurred.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other leading Republicans had discouraged their members from challenging the process, conceding the move would ultimately fail.
But a series of House Republicans had said they planned to object to the vote and, in a statement, Hawley said he would sign on as well, as a way to highlight purported election irregularities.
"At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act," Hawley said.
More than 90 federal and state judges have now rejected challenges to the November vote, including finding allegations of fraud to be meritless.
Trump has been clear about what he wants from Republicans, summoning his supporters to protest in Washington next week. "JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!" he tweeted Wednesday.
A Biden spokeswoman dismissed the significance of Hawley's plans to contest the electoral college results, saying that "the American people spoke resoundingly in this election" and that the role of Congress is "merely a formality."
"It certainly should be treated as such," Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on a conference call. "Regardless of whatever antics anyone is up to on January 6, President-elect Biden will be sworn in on the 20th."
Hawley was the first senator to commit to the challenge. Previously, Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., had said he was considering the move but had not yet decided whether to move forward.
A number of Republican members of the House, led by Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., have also said they plan to challenge votes in swing states where they claim the vote was marred by fraud.
Hawley's move was cheered by several Republicans, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. "Welcome aboard, Senator," Gaetz said in a tweet.
Hawley drew criticism after his announcement Wednesday from some who suggested he was more motivated by 2024 presidential politics than concerns about the 2020 election.
In a tweet, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., suggested that a positive tweet from Trump about Hawley's move would help him with Trump supporters in 2024 even if the move goes nowhere. Hawley could then "blame someone else when it fails," Kinzinger said.
Hawley's move will also raise pressure on Pence, who will preside over next week's proceedings. On Sunday, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and several Arizona Republicans filed a lawsuit against Pence, an attempt to get a federal judge to declare the 1880s law that governs the proceedings next week and tell Pence that accordingly, he does not have to accept Biden's electors, as the law would otherwise require.
The judge has ordered Pence to respond to the suit by the close of business today.
Meanwhile, Walmart apologized Wednesday for a tweet that called Hawley a sore loser for contesting Biden's victory.
The now deleted tweet, "Go ahead. Get your 2 hour debate. #soreloser," was mistakenly sent by a member of Walmart's social media team who meant to publish it on a personal account, the company said.
The hashtag #BoycottWalmart began to trend on Twitter shortly after it appeared on the company's official Twitter account.
"We have removed the post and have no intention of commenting on the subject of certifying the electoral college," Walmart said in a prepared statement. "We apologize to Senator Hawley for this error and any confusion about our position."
Hawley responded to Walmart with his own tweets Wednesday, asking the company if it would "apologize for using slave labor," and for the "pathetic wages you pay your workers as you drive mom and pop stores out of business."
Walmart and other major retailers like Target and Amazon pay well above the federally mandated minimum wage.
TRUMP: RESIGN, GOVERNOR
Also Wednesday, Trump called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to resign, escalating his criticism of a fellow Republican who has refused to intervene in the state's presidential election or embrace Trump's claims of widespread fraud.
"BrianKempGA should resign from office," Trump said in a tweet. "He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG!"
"Also won the other Swing States," Trump claimed, continuing a series of claims he has made since Biden was projected as the winner nationally.
Trump's latest criticism of Kemp came in a tweet that urged his supporters to watch a broadcast of a Senate hearing in Atlanta on purported election irregularities.
Speaking to reporters in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon, Kemp dismissed questions about the president's tweets as a "distraction."
"I mean, I've supported the president," he said. "I've said that many times. I worked as hard as anybody in the state on his reelection up through November the third. I've supported the legal process that him or any other campaign can go through in this state. But at the end of the day, I also have to follow the laws in the Constitution."
On Tuesday, the Georgia secretary of state's office announced the results of a signature audit conducted of mail-in ballots from the election cast in Cobb County.
Working with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the secretary of state's office said it reviewed signatures on 15,118 ballot envelopes, finding none were fraudulent and that all but two included signatures that matched those of the voters on file -- demonstrating that election officials who examined the signatures before the vote had a 99.99% accuracy rate.
Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes, claiming the state's 16 electoral votes. Biden was the first Democratic White House aspirant to win the state since 1992.
Separately, Trump's campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to take its failed lawsuit challenging election results in swing state Wisconsin.
Trump lost the state to Biden by about 21,000 votes. The president's campaign filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's two most heavily Democratic counties.
Trump wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn't a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed "indefinitely confined" status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes.
The state Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit, ruling 4-3 that Trump's challenge to voters who were indefinitely confined was without merit and that the other claims came too late.
Trump's campaign is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that Wisconsin's election failed and allow the Republican-controlled Legislature to appoint the state's electors.
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger of The Washington Post; and by Joseph Pisani, Mary Clare Jalonick, Aamer Madhani and staff members of The Associated Press.
