VP Pence does not have those powers." Here's Why Pence Can't...

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    VP Pence does not have those powers.

    " Here's Why Pence Can't Overthrow Biden’s Win (Despite What Trump May Hope)

    The Senate and House will meet in a joint session on Jan. 6 to officially count the Electoral College votes (which Biden won 306-232), and as president of the Senate, Pence is set to preside over this normally uncontroversial event.

    On Wednesday night, the president retweeted a wild suggestion that Pence should use his role to toss out electoral votes from swing states won by Biden, falsely arguing the vice president has the right to demand new electors if he deems them legally illegitimate.

    Trump has also begun asking advisors about Pence’s responsibilities on Jan. 6, CNN and Axios reported this week (the White House did not respond to a request for comment, and Pence hasn’t taken a public stance on the issue).

    In reality, Pence’s role in the electoral process is sharply limited: He’s in charge of opening the certificates sent by each state’s electoral slate and presiding over a joint session of Congress, not weighing in on the election’s outcome.

    The Constitution instructs Pence to open all the certificates sent by Electoral College delegates, and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 requires him to also open all “papers purporting to be certificates,” meaning he can’t reject any electors on his own, though he could try to open certificates for both the official electors and the self-appointed “alternate electors” Trump’s campaign assembled in several swing states.

    Trump’s Wednesday night retweet claimed an obscure federal law gives Pence the power to throw out electors by the fourth Wednesday in December (which was this week), but the law actually just tells the vice president how to deal with late-arriving Electoral College certificates, a non-issue this year since every certificate has already arrived.

    “There’s not much [Pence] can do,” former Senate historian Donald A. Ritchie told the New York Times last week. “His job is really just to read them out aloud.” "


    https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/12/24/heres-why-pence-cant-overthrow-bidens-win-despite-what-trump-may-hope/?sh=31f45f3d47d9

    https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32717/12


 
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