His role was not ceremonial. The founders were creating a working blueprint of power, not pomp and circumstance rituals without meaning.
He was not a mere powerless rubber stamp or the founders would have seen no need for it.
He was meant to certify that everything was legitimate. Had he not rubber stamped, he would have forced the Supreme Court into acting.
He’s trash and a coward.
No, it wasn't. That doesn't mean he had full discretion to do whatever the hell he wanted. He had a job to do, and he did it.
Read the U.S. Constitution. It describes exactly what the VP's responsibilities are in the electoral vote counting process.
I remember people were challenging the fraud, Dominion machines to this day have not been surrendered in AZ. and
other places, The Kraken never got a hearing at SCOTUS or
any other place Dems and the collussion buddies Pence Rinos
had any say.
We have no election integrity we are just like Venezuela
who first used the Dominion machine
It's worth noting that the process of counting electoral votes HAS become somewhat more "ceremonial" over time simply because modern communications have made some of the constitutional processes little more than formalities that reflect what is already well known.
The 12th Amendment was drafted at a time when electoral votes were certified by the states and then delivered to Congress by someone traveling on foot or on horseback. This process could take weeks. They didn't even have telegraphs back then to transmit news ahead of time.
Today, the process of counting electoral votes has become largely ceremonial simply because the electoral vote certification process that is done in each state on the same day (December 14th) is done in a public manner, and the results transmitted around the world instantly.
The U.S. Constitution says that the Senate President (VP) will open the envelopes containing the electoral ballots and hand them to pre-selected members of the House and Senate to count (the members are called Tellers in the Constitution). That’s all that is in the Constitution as far as the power of the VP and the electoral process that I have found.
If anyone can find any other power in the Constitution that the VP has as far as Electoral Ballots, please cut and paste.
Now Congress can pass laws or adopt rules saying the VP can do certain things. If anyone can find a law or Congressinal rule that allows the VP to reject electoral ballots, please cut and paste the specifics.
I’m not a fan of Pence, but people need to stop repeating the nonsense that he could have overturned the election, or sent electoral ballots back to the states, etc (and again, if anyone thinks the VP has those powers, please cite specific laws or rules giving the VP those powers).
As it happens, when John Adams was vice president, he had ideas about what "presiding over the Senate" meant. He wondered if it justified a more active role for him. The Senate disagreed. Adams ended up thinking that his job was basically ceremonial. So far as I know, none of the other founders protested at the VP's lack of real power.