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Congress formalizes Bush win WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress met Saturday to formalize President-elect Bush's extraordinary election victory, with defeated Vice President Gore presiding and House Democrats objecting futilely to the certification of Florida's votes. There was no suspense over the outcome because no senators joined the House members in their formal objections as required under the law. As a result, Republican Bush kept Florida's 25 electoral votes and was certain to officially defeat Democrat Gore by 271-266 in the Electoral College. Saturday's joint session of Congress was a constitutional formality to ratify the count of the electoral votes that was initially made on Dec. 18 in every state capital. To prevail, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 electoral votes of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Even so, Saturday's meeting attracted unusual attention because it was the final tally of votes in a presidential election that was bitterly contested for 35 days beyond last year's Nov. 7 Election Day. Gore did not concede until Dec. 13, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court forced a halt to vote-counting in Florida. House Democrats, mostly blacks, offered 20 objections aimed at blocking the certification of Florida's votes. But time after time, Gore - at turns serious and with humor - turned them down because of the lack of signatures by senators. That reflected a judgment by many Democrats that it was long past time to end the battling over the election outcome. "The chair thanks the gentleman from Illinois, but, hey," Gore told Rep. Jesse Jackson, D-Ill., who was one of the lawmakers who tried unsuccessfully to challenge the Florida votes Visit our back issue library Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Western Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2000 Lee Northwest Publishing