I completely agree with you here. The place for the fraud to be corrected - if all other legal avenues failed - was in the state legislatures. They select the electors. They can alter that process. By the time it got to Pence, it was already done. The role of the VP in elections is literally just to open the certificates. It starts and ends with that action. This notion that he's somehow going to just throw votes away and declare a president is downright terrifying.
It seems people forget how and why our system of federalism is what it is. The states formed the Federal government; not the people. The Senate originally represented the states; not the people. It should return to that. The whims of the masses are dangerous. The states should have much more say than they do. Putting yet more power into the hands of the masses is dangerous. Putting the power to select the President of the United States into one man's hands? That would be insane.
Says you. I disagree. If the only role is to open envelops, it does not require a Vice President to do it. Anyone could do it because it makes no difference who does it.
You read the article as having no effect, and the Supreme Court has long held that you cannot read any article of the Constitution as having no effect.
The Requirement to have the Vice President implicitly grants power to his office. He is not a letter opener, he is a decider of validity.