How Congress can (legally) stage a coup

Did you know Congress can overthrow the results of a U.S. Presidential election? I sure didn’t until recently.

First off, don’t worry about this Presidential election of 2020. Trump will be gone, and Biden will be President on January 21st, 2021. But that’s only assured because Democrats kept enough U.S. House seats in this last election.

The issue centers around the counting of electoral votes that the newly elected Congress will perform on January 6th. Here’s an example of what could have happened if just five additional House seats had gone to Republicans instead of Democrats in November:

1. On January 6th, the House and Senate meet to count the electoral votes from the states.
2. When California’s certificate is presented with its Biden electoral votes, one Republican Senator and one Republican House Representative say they object to California’s certificate.
3. The Senate and House go away for two hours and vote. With Republicans in control of both houses, a simple majority in each chamber upholds the objection and California’s electoral votes are thrown out.
4. Without those 55 electoral votes, no candidate would have the required 270 votes to be President.
5. The House votes for the President, and they could choose Trump.
6. The Senate votes for the Vice President, and they could choose Pence.

How is this a thing?!

I understand this process was put in place to account for corruption by states and for there to be a way to counteract that. However, the problem here is that it also allows corruption by Congress to counteract the Will of the People.