Irrelevant

1️⃣ There's functionally no such thing as an "improper ruling" by Pence; 12th Amendment requires him to open all the certificates, and the R & D tellers tally votes. If he lets objections be made, it has no effect unless they're upheld by majorities in each chamber

1/ https://twitter.com/tomchannick/status/1341444138504339456
2️⃣ There will be working majorities in both chambers to handle things as Congress sees fit anyway

3️⃣ At best, the most Rs can do is delay things until Pence is no longer in office

2/2
@tomchannick
No, IMO. Article I Section 3 designates the Vice President as President of the Senate, and the 12th Amendment requires that the President of the Senate be the one to open the certificates in joint session

They can overrule any of his decisions, but can't block him from presiding https://twitter.com/jakesherman/status/1341442894138404867
If Pelosi becomes Acting President, there is no Vice President so the person presiding over the joint session for counting electoral votes has historically been the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Chuck Grassley) https://twitter.com/samthegeek/status/1341446292405444611
It can. If Pence decides "I'm not opening another envelope," he could theoretically pause the process until his term expires on January 20th

Nancy Pelosi takes over as Acting President, Chuck Grassley takes over presiding over the joint session, and counting continues https://twitter.com/seesdifferent/status/1341447754829033472
It's always been that way since the very first Congress in 1788

Check out the Hayes-Tilden election in 1876 and the Electoral Commission of 1877

Tilden won the popular vote and was ahead in the Electoral College when Congress counted; Hayes was sworn in as the 19th President https://twitter.com/whateverblah111/status/1341451749601595398
*Officially,* no – the Electoral Count Act prohibits other non-vote-counting business from happening until the vote counting is done

But if both chambers violate the ECA, there's nothing SCOTUS can do about it so practically it could happen https://twitter.com/esp1371/status/1341452153508880385
Yep.

For example, Vice President Hubert Humphrey declined to preside over the joint session in 1969 https://twitter.com/trogdor8768/status/1341453044421148672
That's "the law," yes

It was intentionally crafted that way to limit shenanigans, because it gets mighty f*ckin' boring sitting in Congress every day not legally able to do any business at all except counting electoral votes https://twitter.com/ef_no2/status/1341454635605889035
No

538 electors have been appointed; 270 EVs are required to win now

Pence has no power to "strike" anything. He opens the envelopes, gives the certificates to the tellers, the tellers count

Congress, by separate majority votes of each chamber, can strike EVs as it sees fit https://twitter.com/cevangelista413/status/1341454852841484288
All the rules are written down and some are even pretty well-documented (if you get bored, I highly recommend reading anything by the Congressional Research Service)

It just happens what the rules are only matters when ppl consider trying to violate them https://twitter.com/shivadiva007/status/1341455070194507776
Needs to be at least a quorum of each chamber to conduct business

They can amend their respective rules to allow remote attendance, but they can't just not be there

They can also expedite the opening / counting, which was done in 1997, 2013, and 2017 https://twitter.com/mastaofmp3s/status/1341456067264450560
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if that crossed someone's mind during the ECA's drafting https://twitter.com/saddratini/status/1341456356038086656
In the House's case it wouldn't matter because Ds have a quorum on their own

In the Senate's case, the sergeant-at-arms would be tasked with locating them and compelling their attendance https://twitter.com/baginskiaimee/status/1341456630437670912
51 Senators is a quorum for the Senate

218 Representatives is a quorum for the House

Once a quorum is established, it's presumed to continue unless/until someone demands the roll be called to establish the presence of a quorum https://twitter.com/cathcarthotel/status/1341459650328240129
Dems file a written objection, freeze everything, and resume when Pence is out of office

The EV counting goes alphabetically by state, so Dems will know if there are any shenanigans https://twitter.com/isaac32767/status/1341448296745762817
There's no path for Rs to say "f*ck the Constitution" without Ds having a built-in leverage point to counteract it

That's part of why I think the doomporn is so overblown. The only "f*ck the Constitution" option that could even work is tanks in the streets

2/2
@isaac32767
Very zero

Pence will let Republicans posture for 2024, but will otherwise do exactly what's required of him https://twitter.com/sdcowboy85/status/1341460954639261696
Not stupid at all; scroll up 3 tweets from here, just answered the same Q posited by Isaac https://twitter.com/cevangelista413/status/1341460635083829253
Fundraising for now, and having a "but I *fight*!" narrative for 2024

Nothing more, nothing less https://twitter.com/3dartjames/status/1341462315644776448
Historically, yes

Presumably the joint session could designate whoever they want to preside if the VP doesn't show https://twitter.com/joethejoe4/status/1341461930691555328
Yes, IMO

Rs will only have *at most* 52 Senate seats

Romney, Murkowski, Grassley, Toomey are all unlikely to go along with shenanigans https://twitter.com/sdcowboy85/status/1341462318597586944
Don't be: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1334187881041186822 https://twitter.com/Japtain_America/status/1341465622811557889
Gibberish

All roads lead to a D presidency. The only question is whether it's Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi. https://twitter.com/geckotek/status/1341467273639411716
➡️ Envelope is opened
➡️ EV certificates passed to tellers
➡️ Tellers announce votes
➡️ Objections entertained
➡️ If objections made the announced votes, all counting stops, the joint session breaks, each chamber meets separately to debate and vote https://twitter.com/sdcowboy85/status/1341467940000989184
Y'all keep saying this but I don't understand why 😂

I'm answering hypotheticals. In terms of what's actually going to happen, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President on January 20th at noon

In terms of hypotheticals, *at best* Rs get Nancy Pelosi as Acting President https://twitter.com/kevin8seven1/status/1341468408244801539
https://twitter.com/pdog119/status/1341469107846307841
Whoever this person is, is wrong. They've just strung words together and pretend they mean something https://twitter.com/BambuDB/status/1341499016203431936
Wholly, entirely, completely, 100% wrong https://twitter.com/ncsuwolfpack74/status/1341546429601484800
He doesn't. It's posturing so the grift can continue https://twitter.com/majikazuljin/status/1341549022553759744
Must be, because I've got them blocked from when I ran a blockchain off several of the smaller Q accounts https://twitter.com/headhunter_il/status/1341549969954775044
And it was also done by unanimous consent, a common thing presiding officers use to speed things along (basically "I'm going to do X if there's no objection, treating the lack of objection as everyone agreeing")

I did it routinely presiding over NC State's Student Senate 😂 https://twitter.com/Shawnathan_/status/1341549609278124034
There is no chance a Republican gets a majority of votes for Speaker in a Democrat-majority House https://twitter.com/KathyVullis/status/1341555039010254849
There is no way to "activate" a contingent election if the House blocks the vote-counting process

You just get Acting President Nancy Pelosi and no Vice President https://twitter.com/peopleofSWFL/status/1341510607850381313
I think he's required to open all of the envelopes that are presented to him, yes

In the event he gets multiple slates' of bona fide certificates from any given state, then yes he'd call for objections

They need to be actual EV certificates though, not crayon sh*t I mailed in https://twitter.com/lex_nyc/status/1341566200028016640
Doubtful. Won't matter either way even if there are though https://twitter.com/sdcowboy85/status/1341567229809201154
My read of 3 USC §15 is that Pence is just opening envelopes and handing them to the 4 tellers

If anyone made an initial determination, it would be them https://twitter.com/lex_nyc/status/1341567924348268546
Exactly right https://twitter.com/TylerMoody/status/1341604867022974976
You are correct

All the talk of VP "discretion" and secret powers and such is pure applesauce https://twitter.com/TheBrownFolder/status/1341576100531548160
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