I know you werent serious, just the usual trolling, but it is kind of an interesting issue and so maybe some others in here actually do care about the law in this area. If so .....
" ..... Hayes won the general election by one electoral vote just one day before he took his oath of office. In 1887, Congress then passed the Electoral Count Act to deal with a future scenario of rival or contested electoral votes presented at the joint session of Congress required under the 12th Amendment to certify election results.
The previously obscure Electoral Count Act could be a factor under certain conditions in the current election, some scholars have argued. One problem could be delays in counting votes submitted by mail at the state level, which could lead to a dispute about which votes are counted. Another factor could be lawsuits related to when vote counting ends, to meet the federal deadline for submitting electoral votes to Congress. Or there could be rival sets of electors sent to Congress if state legislatures and governors do not agree on a slate of electors.
A group of leading election scholars remarked in April 2020 a project sponsored by the University of California, Irvine School of Law, about the possible problems with the act.
“Scholarship both old and new has recognized the inadequacies of the Electoral Count Act in the event that a disputed presidential election reaches the joint session of Congress required by the Twelfth Amendment for the receiving and counting of Electoral College votes from the states,” the group said. “The statute is a morass of ambiguity, which is the exact opposite of what is required in this situation.”
The Constitution provides that the settlement of presidential election disputes first happens within the state legal system under powers granted by Article 2, Section 1. In a 2016 analysis of presidential election disputes, the Congressional Research Service said that “under the United States Constitution, these elections for presidential electors are administered and regulated in the first instance by the states, and state laws have established the procedures for ballot security, tallying the votes, challenging the vote count, recounts, and election contests within their respective jurisdictions.”
Of course, that litigation process within the states may involve rulings from the United States Supreme Court, as in Bush v. Gore from 2000. In the end, each state must send a certified list of presidential electors to Congress after the electors meet within each state if the state wants its votes counted in the presidential election.
Under another federal law (3 U.S. Code § 5) known as the safe harbor provision, a state must determine its electors six days before the Electoral College members meet in person. In 2020, that deadline is December 8, since the college votes on December 14. Back in 2000, a deeply divided Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, wouldn’t allow an extension of the safe harbor deadline proposed by Justice Stephen Breyer in the specific case of Florida’s recount.
Federal statutes also require states to deliver certified electoral college results to the vice president, serving as president of the Senate, and other parties by the fourth Wednesday in December; in the year 2020 that date falls on December 23. If the certificates and documents are not received, the Vice President requests the results shall be sent to Congress by registered mail or messenger.
Also under federal law, the joint session of Congress required by the 12th Amendment to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the presidential election is held on January 6, 2021. That is when the Electoral Count Act becomes a factor. When the results from each state are announced, a member of the House and Senate can jointly object, in writing, to the election results from that state. The House and Senate then adjourn briefly to consider the objection; if both bodies agree to uphold the objection, the votes are excluded from the election results under the terms of the Electoral Count Act.
But what happens if a state provides a second slate of electors named by its legislature or a state’s governor refuses to sign the state’s election certificate in a dispute over ballot counting? Ned Foley, a constitutional election scholar from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, has written extensively about such scenarios.
“The procedures for handling a disputed presidential election that reaches Congress are regrettably, and embarrassingly, deficient,” Foley wrote in 2019 for the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. The Electoral Count Act of 1887, which Foley calls “astonishingly messy,” could lead to competing interpretations within Congress of what actions it can take on January 6. Foley also notes there are some historical arguments parts of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that are unconstitutional and there could a role for the Supreme Court to settle these disputes before January 20, 2021, when the Constitution’s 20th Amendment requires the new President to take the oath of office.
In that scenario, the Speaker of the House would serve a president if Congress has not certified a winner of the 2020 presidential election and remain in that role until Congress does so."
The Constitution and contested presidential elections - National Constitution Center
