A federal judge has dismissed a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican that aimed to give Vice-President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.
Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College this month cemented Joe Biden's 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.
The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserted that the vice president "may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State".
In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Louie Gohmert, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs "allege an injury that is not fairly traceable" to Pence, "and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief".