The vote is certified and those who dissent are conspiracy theorists,

["MADELYN EVANS" <madelynevans@xxxxxxx>]

Case closed, and why not get more of those machines anyway, folks!
Oh and also remember to "Get over it!"

Jan 6, 8:07 PM EST

Congress formally OKs Bush election

By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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 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.

"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.

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 debate the Ohio 
irregularities.

Boxer, 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.

"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.

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.

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. EST, with Cheney 
presiding as the Senate's president and about 100 lawmakers in attendance.

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 the 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. 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.

For Ohio's votes to be invalidated, both Republican-controlled chambers 
would have had to back the challenge.

The last time the two chambers were forced to interrupt their joint 
vote-counting 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.

Supporters of the challenge repeatedly said they had no desire to overturn 
the election. Many who spoke in favor of the protest even voted against it 
in hopes of clarifying what they said was the real issue - the need to make 
the country's voting systems fairer and to prevent fraud.

"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 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 McClellan said it was 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."

---

Associated Press Writers Malia Rulon and Erica Werner contributed to this 
report.

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