[Dr. Franklin]

Pence had no authority to do any such thing. As the presiding officer in a joint session of Congress he had no authority to do anything unilaterally except cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

When the petition for a writ of quo warranto makes its way up to SCOTUS, watch Roberts join the liberals and write an opinion that it was Pence's job to send the electoral certifications back to the states if there was any fraud, and now it's too late to change anything.

[Alberta's Child]

A more likely scenario would be Roberts writing an opinion that it was up to CONGRESS (not the VP) to send the certifications back to the states.

That ruling would be more legally sound, but I'm not even sure if that's the correct ruling. If it were up to me, I'd simply note that the 12th Amendment and the related Federal law in place right now give Congress the authority to address the substance of the fraud allegations right there on the spot at the January 6th certification. Congress would then have the option of certifying Biden's electors, certifying Trump's electors, or certifying NO electors from a state that couldn't get its act together and submit valid electors.

I would also point out that Congress can only do these things if they have received notice of multiple slates of electors from the December 14th Electoral College certification process. Absent that, Congress has very little reason to "fix" a fraudulent set of electors from a state. The fraud should have been addressed, or at least recognized and documented by the State where it occurred, before the Electoral College vote.