At the conclusion of the state-by-state rundown, Cheney read the tally sheet and announced the results — that Obama has been elected president and Biden will succeed Cheney as vice president.

The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, directs the electors chosen by the states to meet and vote for president and vice president, conveying the results to the president of the Senate.

That was accomplished Dec. 15, when the electors, in a largely ceremonial rite preordained by Obama's Nov. 4 victory over McCain, gathered in state capitals to cast their votes. As on Thursday, the tally was 365 for Obama, 173 for McCain.

The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors, with each state getting its equivalent in the 435-member House and the 100-member Senate. The District of Columbia gets the other three electors.

The session this year was drama-free, unlike in 2001, when then-Vice President Al Gore presided over the session that declared George W. Bush the winner over Gore in a disputed election. Gore disallowed objections from fellow Democrats who asserted that Bush had unfairly won Florida and tried to block Florida's electoral votes from being counted.

Florida's Democratic senator, Bill Nelson, on Thursday pointed to the 2000 election, when Gore received more popular votes than Bush nationwide, in proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College in favor of direct popular votes. He said the current system permits a candidate with fewer votes nationally to win the presidency by capturing narrow victories in big states.

Nelson and others have made similar proposals in past sessions of Congress without success.

Also on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice David Souter rejected an emergency plea to prevent Congress from certifying the electoral vote. It was the latest of at least 8 appeals to the court in recent months — all quickly dismissed — asserting that Obama is ineligible to be president because he is not a "natural-born citizen" as the Constitution requires.

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Internet-fueled theories contend either that Obama's birth certificate is a fake or he is ineligible because he had dual nationality when he was born. Hawaii officials have said the birth certificate is authentic.