SCOTUS could have ruled that States must comply with Federal election law and their own State's election laws. Several states didn't comply. Though the courts ruled against the argument of Pence and the 12th Amendment giving Pence, not the states, sole discretion to determine which among competing slates of electors may be counted, it certainly should have been a consideration on his part as he still had the obligation as President of the Senate to preside over the election -- if there were fraudulent votes (as it became increasingly obvious) he had a duty to throw out or not certify those votes. This was not so much about trying to overturn an election, but to have some validity and verification of a fair election.
Pence certainly should have NOT determined the election, but he certainly shouldn't have certified fraudulent votes.
SCOTUS rejection of the Paxton case is one of the few issues on which
@roamer_1 and I disagree, and even in our disagreement I acknowledge that he has a legitimate case.
The idea that Pence could have done anything other than what he did has always been absurd. Not a single word in the Twelfth Amendment even remotely suggests that the President of the Senate has any authority to reject state-certified electoral votes. The only action of the President of the Senate according to the 12 A is :
"The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;"There is no Constitutional basis for determining that EVs are "fraudulent", even if we all agree they do not represent the truth. The sole authority to determine that EVs are official and to be counted is the authority of the state to certify the EVs.
The President of the Senate does not certify anything; there is no such Constitutional authority other than the state.And if Pence *could have* rejected EVs during the count, they why couldn't Kamala Harris do the exact same thing during the 2025 count? All she would need would be a rump set of EVs sent up by the D state legislators in any state won by the R candidate. We all agree that the Ds will shamelessly lie and cheat and the media will cover for them; what would stop her from rejecting enough R EVs to throw the election to the D candidate?