Re: 2 - I don’t believe he could do that.
Why they changed the law.
If he couldn’t then why did the democrats quickly pass a law making the VP certification of election results a ceremonial act. Indicates to me they knew he was within his rights to legally do what #2 said. But, there are arguments on both sides and only the SCOTUS could provide the answer.
Few!
Wassup.
The 12th Amendment of the Constitution is quite clear about the duties of the VP regarding certification:
“the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; — The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President”.
NO discretion is given to examine or validate or anything else. It’s a largely ceremonial role - to “count” and nothing more. I know FReepers don’t accept this but I could care less - I can read and in all of our history NOT ONE time has a VP acting in this role done anything other than to open the certificates and count them.
I fully support Trump and know full well he was cheated but you can either follow the Constitution like Pence did or you can raise hell because he didn’t make up some power he is not given by the constitution (which would have simply raised another crisis). I am certain if he had done so and thrown the nation into limbo, the only resolution would have come from the Supreme Court and they would have unanimously found that Pence failed to do his duty and certified the election of Biden anyway.
The Constitution is not perfect and the framers never envisioned a scenario in which citizens of a great nation would stoop so low as to cheat. The democrats knew it and took full advantage of this weakness in the constitution, and in the powers delegated to the states regarding elections, where it is easier to cheat.
Anything more or less is extra-constitutional, also known as “what Democrats do”.