We now know that VP Pence was so unsettled by Trump’s attempt to disrupt the electoral college vote certification that he consulted Dan Quayle.
There’s now evidence that he tried to void the attempts to substitute fraudulent “Trump” electors by requiring additional authentication. It would have been rechecked again anyway, but does show Pence’s attention to constitutional duty in the face of pressure from Trump himself. OTOH it wasn’t so much a “workaround” as it could be Pence’s CYA in the face of the scenarios spelled out by lawfare collaborators like John Eastman in his memos.
On the other end of the process it now has been shown that Mark Meadows may have been involved in this production of fraudulent elector certification in swing states. Even if they were only meant to delay the process, the extent to which false documents were prepared and signed shows the level of collusion.
One facet of that coordination is the Navarro, Bannon, Eastman, and Cruz “Green Bay Sweep”, complete with reference to the 1877 end of Reconstruction and the subsequent rise of Jim Crow, that would be resurrected with the Trumpian “reinstatement”. The “Sweep” would have disenfranchised the popular vote by throwing the Federal election result to a limited vote determined by a majority of GOP-dominated state legislatures, all enabled with a delay created by the 6 January 2021 disruption of Congress.
So Pence avoided a coup by noting that the Parliamentarians had validated (by checking with each state’s Sec of State) which slate of electors were real and which were fraudulent?
This is how Pence worked around it:
Here's what one state GOP said at the time after the mock Republican electors held a vote.
And here's what Georgia's GOP chairman said as the Trump non-electors met to cast votes.
• • •