I was reviewing the text of the electoral count act and noticed some interesting things regarding the procedure for counting the electoral votes.

From the Electoral Count Act:

LII U.S. Code Title 3 CHAPTER 1 § 15

Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, 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; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted according to the rules in this subchapter provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate

The 12th amendment to the constitution further states that the president of the Senate must open all certificates in the presence of the house and senate, which according to the electoral count act I Clyde's anything purporting to be a certificate, presumably to prevent the president of the Senate from being able to ignore legitimate certificates.

The question is, since they must open everything, could the president of the Senate be spammed with so much mail purporting to be electoral certificates that he could, if he insisted on opening them, delay the count indefinitely?

Apparently papers sent as a prank were presented in the 1888 election, so presumably, papers sent as a protest could also be presented if the president of the Senate was sympathetic to the protest. Interesting.