“Both Tilden and Hayes electors submitted votes from these three states, each claiming victory in violent and confused elections.
The Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-dominated Senate came to a compromise on how to resolve the problem by creating an Electoral Commission: a bipartisan committee of House Members, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices who would determine the final disposition of the yet-unassigned electoral votes…”
Yep, Congress has the authority to accept of reject any or all Electoral Ballots. That’s what they did in the Tilden/Hayes dispute. You’ll notice the VP didn’t appoint any commission, the VP didn’t determine which ballots were legitimate. That’s because the VP has no powers under the Constitution or Federal Law to determine which ballots to accept of reject.
The grounds Pence would have been standing on is that there were multiple electors presented from certain states, and therefore he had the right, if not obligation, to refuse to certify any of those states based on the precedent of 1876. Instead, he acted like everything was hunky dory, and peachy keen, which was anything but the truth. His lies now that the President was pushing him to solely overturn the election further expose his dishonesty.