There was this: “But it does appear that his hard-core supporters will launch one more formal effort to overturn the election results on his behalf, thanks to the obscure and confusing Electoral Count Act of 1877, which established a mechanism for the last-minute resolution of presidential election disputes (like the one that had just roiled the nation in 1876).To make a very long and tedious story short, the last step in any presidential election is the certification of electoral votes by the newly elected Congress in early January. This is normally a rubber-stamp of the results everyone knows on or shortly after Election Night. But the above-mentioned Electoral Count Act provides a way to “pause” the certification if one House and one Senate member protest the award of electors in one or more states. In that event, the two chambers separate and hold a two-hour debate before voting on the electoral votes for disputed states. Only if both Houses disapprove the initial results are they changed.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/no-congress-wont-help-trump-overturn-the-election.html Note the source…

More: “There’s an even smaller and more fateful two-week window before the inauguration during which a newly elected Congress counts and certifies the Electoral Vote on January 6, and hastily makes other provisions for the presidency if neither candidate has a recognized majority.This timetable was created by the combination of vague constitutional language on how to formally elect a president, and a confusing and possibly unconstitutional statute from 1887 (ten years after an election dispute that nearly triggered a second Civil War) called the Electoral Count Act. In a normal, uncontested presidential election year, this process draws little or no attention because the outcome is ordained and is generally known (in all presidential elections since 1876 other than the 2000 cliffhanger) on or shortly after Election Day. Typically governors certify the winning electoral college slate before the ECA’s “safe harbor” deadline six days before the electoral college ballot box is locked (which purportedly means no one can challenge them later). The votes are then cast, the vice-president, in his or her role as president of the Senate, reads them out to a Joint Session of Congress on January 6. Lawmakers then immediately certify the count, and during all this time the new administration is getting ready to assume office.
This year, however, in part because of the expected slow count (and possibly recount) of ballots, and in part because of lawsuits and possibly presidential efforts to interfere with the counting of all those “fraudulent” mail ballots, it’s not at all certain that highly contested states will meet this year’s “safe harbor” deadline of December 8 for identifying a clear winner, or that when the Electoral College virtually “meets” on December 14, there will be just one slate per state sent in for tabulation. So depending on how much of a factual and legal quagmire a putative Republican rejection of the legitimacy of mail ballots creates, we could have pols and judges and pundits from both parties claiming victory, and big crowds in a thousand streets backing them up, by the time the new Congress takes office on January 3 and prepares to count Electoral Votes three days later.
According to the constitutional scheme, the President of the Senate, who would be current Vice-President Mike Pence, would “announce” the votes to a joint session of the newly elected Congress. The Electoral Count Act clearly expects the states and ultimately Congress (barring a contrary vote by both Houses of Congress, gubernatorial certifications are supposed to be recognized), not the veep, to decide which slate to announce, but if Pence were to only announce Trump-Pence slates citing his constitutional prerogatives, it’s unclear what would happen. Again, the constitutionality of the ECA has never been tested. And the effect of its provisions governing disputed slates would totally depend on which party controlled Congress, and which party controlled the governorship of the affected states.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/the-system-for-resolving-a-contested-election-is-also-a-mess.html

Error happened.