Democrats challenge electoral votes

WASHINGTON -- 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.\nBush's Election Day triumph over Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was never in doubt. After a near four-hour delay to consider and reject a 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, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. A total of 270 votes are needed for victory.\n"This announcement shall be a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the United States for the term beginning Jan. 20, 2005," Vice President Dick Cheney, who presided over the session, read without emotion when the final votes were tabulated.\nIn 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 debate the Ohio irregularities.\nBoxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including many black lawmakers, hoped the showdown would underscore the problems such as missing voting machines and unusually long lines that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods, on Nov. 2.\n"If they were willing to stand in polls for countless hours in the rain, as many did in Ohio, then I can surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress," Tubbs Jones said.\nDemocratic 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.\nThe debates were tinged by memories of the 2000 election, when Bush edged Democrat Al Gore after six weeks of recounts and turmoil in Florida.\n"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.\nThe joint session began as required by law at 1 p.m. EST, with Cheney presiding as the Senate's president and about 100 lawmakers in attendance.\nOne 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 the meeting, Tubbs Jones and Boxer issued their challenge to Ohio's 20 electoral votes. The state had put Bush over the top.\nBy 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. The Senate session lasted just over an hour and ended when the chamber voted 74-1 to uphold Ohio's votes, with Boxer the lone vote. The House used its full time and upheld the Ohio results, 267-31.\nFor Ohio's votes to be invalidated, both Republican-controlled chambers would have had to back the challenge.\nRep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said the Democratic complaints were "outrage based on fantasy conspiracies." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called the effort "a shame" and its goal "not justice but noise." At the White House, spokesman Scott \nMcClellan said it was time to move forward and "not engage in conspiracy theories or partisan politics of this nature."\nSenate 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.\nHe spoke briefly during the Senate debate, saying, "The sacrifice of our military demands that we ensure that our own elections are fair"