Recently, a blog was posted that explains that the President of the Senate (Pence) has the sole authority to decide which certificates of election to open and count. It points out that there was a dispute in which Georgia's certificate of election was clearly defective, but Jefferson (President of the Senate at the time) chose to count it anyway.
The top comment on the post said "This is actually not true. It was contested & the house had voted 26 times (always in a tie) before rejecting him." This partially true. It is an indisputable fact that Jefferson chose to open and count Georgia's votes despite the defective certificate. If he had not done this, nobody would have had a majority of Electoral votes, and there would be been a contingent election BETWEEN ALL FIVE CANDIDATES WHO RECEIEVED ELECTORAL VOTES. The House of Representatives was Federalist, so John Adams would have won.
However, because he did count the votes, he and Burr had a majority, BUT they were tied. (At the time, each Elector had two votes, and the first place became President and second place became Vice President.) So, there was a contingent election BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM to decide which would be President and which would be VP. It was a tie for thirty-five times before Hamilton convinced some Federalists to vote for Jefferson in order to prevent Burr from becoming President.
TL;DR: The article is correct that the President of the Senate chooses which votes to count. Jefferson chose to open and count Georgia's certificate, but that left a tie between him and Burr, leading to a contingent election. Mike Pence can choose whether or not to open and count any State's Electoral votes.
You are correct, but that has no bearing on Pence's ability to open and count the Electoral votes.
The Twelve Amendment simply made it so that each Elector had separate votes for President and Vice President
The process is laid out in U.S. Code 3:15 VP opens the envelopes and gives them to tellers who count them, then they give him the total and he announces it, then asks if anyone objects.
Beyond that, I can't see anything that gives him any other powers.
It seems that the VP can choose whether or not to open any particular envelope, right?
"all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A"
So, you definitely could be right, but I think that sentence could mean two things:
All certificates of the electoral votes shall be opened, presented, and acted upon. The order will be alphabetical.
The order in which the certificates shall be opened, presented, and acted upon is alphabetical.
If number 1, you are right. If 2, that does not preclude the President of the Senate from choosing not to open some.
Either way, I am curious, if Pence chose not to open some, what recourse Congress would have. Maybe they would sue