After a flap, Bush election OK'd

WASHINGTON — Turning a humdrum formality into a historic fight, Democrats delayed congressional certification of President Bush's re-election Thursday until both the House and Senate voted to overcome an objection to the Ohio presidential electors.

After sometimes acrimonious debate, Congress eventually certified Bush's 286-251 electoral vote victory.

The challenge by members of the losing political party was only the second time since 1877 that the normally routine counting of Electoral College votes in a joint session of Congress was interrupted to require a separate vote in both chambers.

The objection to the Ohio electors was voted down in the Senate by a 74-1 vote. The lone holdout was Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who had lodged the objection. The House voted 267-31 to uphold the Ohio electoral count, with most of the objecting votes coming from members of the Black Caucus who had charged that minority voters were disproportionately disenfranchised.

Democrats had charged that voting machine shortages led to long lines in predominately African-American neighborhoods, that voting machines broke down, that the machines were manufactured by a Bush backer, that Ohio's Republican Party had engaged in pre-election intimidation and that many Democratic ballots went uncounted. Republicans countered that the results had been unanimously certified by a bipartisan elections board.

In Congress, the objecting Democrats said they were not seeking to reverse the election results but rather to highlight problems in Ohio's election process. Republicans called the delay "sour grapes" and an attempt to undermine the election's legitimacy and Bush's standing.

"This objection does not have at its root the hope or even the hint of overturning or challenging the victory of the president," said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, who lodged the formal House objection. "But it is a necessary, timely and appropriate opportunity to review and remedy the most precious process in our democracy."

But Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, called the allegations of election fraud in his home state "wild, incoherent and completely unsubstantiated."

"I find it almost impossible to believe that I am actually standing on the floor of the United States Senate engaged in a debate over whether or not George Bush won Ohio in the 2004 presidential election," said DeWine. "Clearly, he did, and did so by over 118,000 votes."

Bush defeated Democratic candidate John Kerry by 3.3 million votes. Kerry did not back the challenge to the Electoral College.