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What role does the vice president play when Congress counts electoral votes?
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Electoral College
A certificate from Alabama showing the signatures of the state's electors in 2000. The nine electors voted for George W. Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney.
During the joint session of Congress held on January 6 to tally and certify electoral votes, the sitting vice president serves in their capacity as the president of the Senate.12
According to the Twelfth Amendment, the vice president is responsible for opening all the certificates containing the electoral votes in the presence of both the Senate and the House of Representatives so that the votes may be counted. Once the votes are tallied, if a presidential candidate has secured 270 or more electoral votes, the vice president formally declares that individual to be the president-elect, which concludes the Electoral College process.231