The job has occasionally been unpleasant for vice presidents. In 1961, the state of Hawaii sent two slates of electors and the vice president, Richard M. Nixon, who had just lost the election to John . Kennedy, moved to count the emocratic electors, which expanded his own margin of defeat. orty years later, Al Gore was in a similar spot, burdened with overruling objections from his fellow emocrats and declaring the victory of George W. Bush — and his own defeat — after a drawn-out lorida recount that was ended by the Supreme Court. And in 2017, Mr. Biden, then the vice president, had to reject a emocratic challenge to Mr. Trump’s victory.