Congress
Certifies Election Results
Associated
Press, cbsnews.com
January
6, 2005
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Congress certified President Bush's re-election Thursday but only
after Democrats forced a challenge to the quadrennial count of
electoral votes for just the second time since 1877.
Bush's Election Day triumph over Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was
never in doubt. After a near four-hour delay to consider and
reject the dispute over voting in Ohio, lawmakers in joint session
affirmed Bush's 286-251 electoral vote victory — plus a single
vote that a "faithless" Kerry elector cast for his
running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
In a drama that was historic if not suspenseful, Rep. Stephanie
Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., formally
protested that the Ohio votes "were not, under all known
circumstances, regularly given." That, by law, required the
House and Senate to convene separately and hold separate debates
on the Ohio irregularities.
Boxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including many
black lawmakers, hoped the showdown would underscore the missing
voting machines, unusually long lines and other problems that
plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods, on
Nov. 2.
Democratic leaders distanced themselves from the effort, which
many in the party worried would make them look like sore losers.
Bush won Ohio by 118,000 votes and carried the national contest by
3.3 million votes, and Kerry himself — meeting with troops in
the Middle East — did not support the challenge.
Even so, Boxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including
many black lawmakers, tried using the sessions to underscore the
missing voting machines, unusually long lines and other problems
that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods,
on Nov. 2.
"If they were willing to stand in polls for countless hours
in the rain, as many did in Ohio, than I can surely stand up for
them here in the halls of Congress," Tubbs Jones said.
The debates were tinged by memories of the 2000 election, when
Bush edged Democrat Al Gore after six weeks of recounts and
turmoil in Florida.
"There's a wise saying we've used in Florida the past four
years that the other side would be wise to learn: Get over
it," said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.
The joint session began as required by law at 1 p.m., with Vice
President Dick Cheney presiding as the Senate's president and
about 100 lawmakers present.
One by one and in alphabetical order, certificates of each state's
electoral votes were withdrawn from ceremonial mahogany boxes and
read aloud. The session usually goes quickly, but when Ohio's
votes were read 16 minutes into Thursday's meeting, Tubbs Jones
and Boxer issued their challenge to Ohio's 20 electoral votes. The
state had put Bush over the top.
By law, a protest signed by members of the House and Senate
requires both chambers to meet separately for up to two hours to
consider it. Lawmakers are allowed to speak for no more than five
minutes each.
The Senate session lasted just over an hour and ended when the
chamber voted 74-1 to uphold Ohio's votes. Boxer was the lone
vote. The House used its full time and upheld the Ohio results,
267-31.
The last time the two chambers were forced to interrupt their
joint session and meet separately was in January 1969, when a
"faithless" North Carolina elector designated for
Richard Nixon voted instead for independent George Wallace. Both
chambers agreed to allow the vote for Wallace.
The previous challenge requiring separate House and Senate
meetings was in 1877 during the disputed contest that Rutherford
Hayes eventually won over Samuel Tilden.
The action was certain to leave Bush's victory intact because both
Republican-controlled chambers would have to uphold the objection
for Ohio's votes to be invalidated.
Hoping to avoid accusations of trying to upset the election,
supporters of the challenge repeatedly said they had no such
desire. Many even said they would vote against their own motion
and in favor of validating the disputed Ohio tally to avoid
clouding the real issue — the need to make the country's voting
systems fairer and more accurate.
"Our people are dying all over the world ... to bring
democracy to the far corners of the world. Let's fix it
here," Boxer said.
But that didn't stop Republicans from casting Democrats as trying
to subvert the election results.
Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said Democratic complaints were
"outrage based on fantasy conspiracies." At the White
House, spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed the move as politically
driven, saying, "it is time to move forward and not engage in
conspiracy theories or partisan politics of this nature."
Senate Democratic aides said new Senate Minority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev., initially opposed challenging the Ohio vote, and
questioned Boxer about it when she told him she would join the
protest.
He spoke briefly during the Senate debate, saying, "The
sacrifice of our military demands that we ensure that our own
elections are fair."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to directly
answer reporters' questions about whether she supported the move.
But she, too, spoke during the House debate, saying of the
challengers, "This is their only opportunity to have this
debate while the country is listening."
Bush defeated Kerry, 286-252, on Election Day, with 270 needed for
victory. When electors met last month in state capitals to
formally vote, an unknown Kerry elector in Minnesota cast a secret
ballot for former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., Kerry's running mate.
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