> The above are the things I took as insulting &/or likely to provoke a more inflammatory conversation. I think there are better ways to ask someone to reconsider what you wrote, ways that are less likely to escalate a confrontational tone.

I'm open to suggestions but the level of continued misapprhension I was facing called for more strong language than the simple corrections I had already repeatedly tried in this thread.

Note the the constitution does not assign this duty to the VP directly, but via his role as the Senate President. Chuck Grassley held the position of Senate President Pro Tempore and the ceremonial duties would have fallen to him.

Now, he may have refused to perfom his constitutionally mandated duty which would have resulted in legal battle that would probably have ended up in the supreme court.

Now, there is maybe an extremely outside chance the supreme court would have invalidated the election and forced a new one. There was absolutely no chance that the Supreme Court would decide that the VP has the unilateral power to completely bypass the counting of the votes and skip ahead in the process to the allow state delegations to select the president.

There would have been chaos and probably a lot more riots and even acts of terrorism. None of that would have allowed the overthow of the US government.