Honestly, Pence could just decide he's too busy doing Pence-stuff (shocking random people, probably) to actually count electors. That would send it to the House delegation for a vote there.
12th Amendment lays out the procedure, VP has to be present and has to be the one who unseals the envelopes and counts the Electoral votes. No one else. If no votes are counted, then no candidate can achieve a majority (270). As a President can't be selected, it becomes a contingent election wherein the House has to vote for President, with each state represented by a single vote.
I can't see any grounds for getting around this, the language is very direct. And it doesn't even need to be some sort of procedural trick, Pence could just come down with the Covid, and be too sick to count the votes. Not sure when the House has to choose, but Pence could easily stay sick for weeks, that Covid is a killer I'm told.
"Due to the cyberattack, we cannot use livestreams to vote. Unfortunately for Joe Biden, only Republican states showed up in person." -- Mike Pence
Honestly, Pence could just decide he's too busy doing Pence-stuff (shocking random people, probably) to actually count electors. That would send it to the House delegation for a vote there.
I'm sure there's some legal way around that, but who knows. This is all new ground for me.
12th Amendment lays out the procedure, VP has to be present and has to be the one who unseals the envelopes and counts the Electoral votes. No one else. If no votes are counted, then no candidate can achieve a majority (270). As a President can't be selected, it becomes a contingent election wherein the House has to vote for President, with each state represented by a single vote.
I can't see any grounds for getting around this, the language is very direct. And it doesn't even need to be some sort of procedural trick, Pence could just come down with the Covid, and be too sick to count the votes. Not sure when the House has to choose, but Pence could easily stay sick for weeks, that Covid is a killer I'm told.