Congress tally affirms Obama victory

Pages lead a Senate procession Friday carrying two boxes holding Electoral College votes through Statuary Hall to the House chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Pages lead a Senate procession Friday carrying two boxes holding Electoral College votes through Statuary Hall to the House chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

— President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will serve another term in the White House.

Although that may seem like old news, a joint session of Congress confirmed the Democratic ticket’s victory Friday, tallying the ballots from the Electoral College to officially declare Obama the winner with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206 votes.

Capping off a week that started with an eleventh-hour resolution to the fiscal impasse by the departing Congress, the session offered another moment of tradition as the new Congress, fresh from the swearing-in ceremonies Thursday, fulfilled the constitutionally mandated practice of certifying the presidential election results.

The newly reappointed Democratic leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, sat together as Biden announced the results in his role as president of the Senate.

The session, which began with the procession into the House chamber of the mahogany boxes containing each state’s electoral vote totals, took a little more than 20 minutes. Four lawmakers - Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa. - read each state’s results aloud, punctuated a couple of times by mild applause from the otherwise silent chamber.

There are 538 electors, who cast separate votes for president and vice president. While most states require their electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote, there was still a chance that a few “faithless electors,” as they are called, could break away and cast their ballots for other candidates. Before the November election, there were reports that some Republican electors might vote for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, one of Romney’s primary challengers. However, the final tally fell in line with the popular vote.

The session typically occurs Jan. 6, but because that falls on a Sunday this year, Congress passed a law moving the count, just this once, to Jan. 4.

The low-key session was in sharp contrast to the drama in January 2001, when Vice President Al Gore, the loser in the disputed election, presided over the certification of an electoral count that gave the presidency to his rival, Republican George W. Bush. Gore had beaten Bush in the popular vote but lost the electoral count.

Months after the November election, the final official vote from all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed Obama with 65,899,660 votes, or 51.1 percent, and Romney with 60,932,152 votes, or 47.2 percent. Obama is the first president since Republican Dwight Eisenhower to win back-to-back presidential elections with more than 51 percent of the popular vote.

Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in Obama at noon on Jan. 20 at the White House in a private ceremony, and then administer the oath again on the West Front of the Capitol the next day. The Constitution requires that the inauguration take place on Jan. 20 but because it is a Sunday, the public session and the accompanying parade and festivities will occur on Monday.

Biden has asked Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to swear him in for a second term.

She will be the first Hispanic to administer either a presidential or vice presidential oath.

Information for this article was contributed by Emmarie Huetteman of The New York Times and by Donna Cassata of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/05/2013