On Jan 6, right after the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, 147 Republican lawmakers voted the way then-president Donald Trump and the rioters had demanded - to overturn his election loss, after months of Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen.

A month later, the Republican party remains paralysed by that false narrative. Fully 133 of those lawmakers, or 90 percent, are now declining to either endorse or repudiate Trump’s continuing insistence that he was cheated by systemic voter fraud, according to a Reuters survey of all 147 lawmakers and a review of public statements they made to explain their votes against certifying the Electoral College results.

Just two of those lawmakers told Reuters they believed the election was stolen through fraud; two others who did not respond to repeated inquiries made similar public statements previously. Ten of the 147 lawmakers told Reuters they do not believe...