Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday said that he doesn’t believe he has the “unilateral authority” to decide between competing slates of electors. “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence said in a statement released just before a joint session of Congress began. As president of the Senate, Pence is presiding over the session. The purpose of the session is to count electoral votes. Under the Electoral College system, voters choose electors. Those electors then vote, almost always for the candidate that received the most ballots in their state. Congress meets in the January after an election to tally the votes. Typically a rote affair, this session has taken on heightened significance after seven states sent two certificates to Washington, one for Democratic presidential …