So, during the counting the electoral votes in the joint session, the tellers are the ones who actually read the states’ certificates aloud. According to usual practice, the tellers are the chair & ranking members of the House Administration Committee & Senate Rules Committee.

That means Roy Blunt, Amy Klobuchar, Zoe Lofgren and Rodney Davis.

During the 2017 session, the tellers read the certificates in this order: Senate Rules Committee Chair, House Administration Committee Chair, Senate Rules Ranking Member, House Administration Ranking Member.

If the same order applies next January 6th, the order will be: Blunt, Lofgren, Klobuchar, Davis.

Arizona, the first of the states in alphabetical order where Republicans purport to have sent “alternative” electoral vote certificates, comes third in reading order.

It’s the duty of the tellers to whom the certificates are handed to announce whether on inspection the certificates are “regular in form and authentic,” and if so, to then announce how the electoral votes from that state were cast.

That means any of the counterfeit “certificates” purporting to be the electoral votes from Arizona that might by some miracle be handed to the tellers would be handed to... Amy Klobuchar, who would not be likely to deem a counterfeit certificate “regular in form and authentic."

If these fake electors actually mailed their certificates to the President of the Senate as the real electors are supposed to, I still don’t believe that any staffer would hand Pence a counterfeit certificate for reading in front of everybody in the joint session.

My guess is that the House and/or Senate Members who plan to object to the electoral votes of one state or another will have to carry the counterfeits into the House chamber with them, and hope to attach them to their written objections.

Of course, they don’t actually need to have any “alternative” certificates at all just to raise an objection. So the certificates are pointless in that regard.

It’s just that even if they sneak them into the pile that gets to Pence, they’re STILL pointless.

But at least it would be interesting to watch to see what a Democrat would do if handed a counterfeit certificate, and a script that says you’re supposed to say what you’ve been handed appears to be regular in form and authentic.