2005 United States Electoral College vote count

The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Article Two of the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president. Each state appoints electors according to its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (senators and representatives). Federal office holders cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, an absolute majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president.^[1] As stated in the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, if no candidate for either office achieves an absolute majority there, a contingent election is held by the United States House of Representatives to elect the president, and by the United States Senate to elect the vice president; under this amendment, only the election of 1824 failed to produce a majority for president, and the election of 1836 for vice president.^{[citation needed]}

Each state and the District of Columbia produces two documents to be forwarded to Congress, a certificate of ascertainment and a certificate of vote. A certificate of ascertainment is an official document that identifies the state's appointed College electors and the tally of the final popular vote count for each candidate in that state^[2] in a presidential election;^[3][4] the certificate of ascertainment is submitted after an election by the governor of each state to the archivist of the United States^[5][6] and others,^[7] in accordance with 3 U.S.C. §§ 6–14^[8][9] and the Electoral Count Act.^[10][11] Within the United States' electoral system, the certificates "[represent] a crucial link between the popular vote and votes cast by electors".^[12] The certificates must bear the state seal and the governor's signature. Staff from the Office of the Federal Register ensure that each certificate contains all legally required information.^[13] When each state's appointed electors meet to vote (on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December),^[4] they sign and record their vote on a certificate of vote,^[9][11] which are then paired with the certificate of ascertainment, which together are sent to be opened and counted by Congress.^[14]

The 12th Amendment mandates Congress assemble in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election.^[15][16] The Electoral Count Act, a federal law enacted in 1887, further established specific procedures for the counting of the electoral votes by the joint Congress.^[17] The session is ordinarily required to take place on January 6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors.^[18] Since the 20th Amendment, the newly elected joint Congress declares the winner of the election; all elections before 1936 were determined by the outgoing Congress.^{[citation needed]}

A state's certificate of vote can be rejected only if both Houses of Congress, debating separately, vote to accept an objection by a majority in each House.^[19] If the objection is approved by both Houses, the state's votes are not included in the count. Individual votes can also be objected to, and are also not counted. If there are no objections or all objections are overruled, the presiding officer simply includes a state's votes, as declared in the certificate of vote, in the official tally. After the certificates from all states are read and the respective votes are counted, the presiding officer simply announces the final state of the vote. This announcement concludes the joint session and formalizes the recognition of the president-elect and of the vice president-elect.^[1] The senators then depart from the House chamber. The final tally is printed in the Senate and House journals.^{[citation needed]}

One elector in Minnesota cast a ballot for president with the name of "John Ewards" [sic] written on it.^[20] The Electoral College officials certified this ballot as a vote for Edwards for president. The remaining nine electors cast ballots for Kerry. All ten electors in the state cast ballots for Edwards for vice president (Edwards's name was spelled correctly on all ballots for vice president).^[21] This was the first time in U.S. history that an elector had cast a vote for the same person to be both president and vice president. Electoral balloting in Minnesota was performed by secret ballot, and none of the electors admitted to casting the Edwards vote for president, so it may never be known who the faithless elector was. It is not even known whether the vote for Edwards was deliberate or unintentional; the Republican Secretary of State and several of the Democratic electors have expressed the opinion that this was an accident.^[22]

On January 6, 2005, Senator Barbara Boxer joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio in filing a congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes due to alleged irregularities including disqualification of provisional ballots, alleged misallocation of voting machines, and disproportionately long waits in predominantly African-American communities.^[23][24] Ohio's polling locations and equipment are determined by two Democrats and two Republicans serving on the county's Board of Elections, which ensures that any decision made about polling resources is bipartisan.^[25] The Senate voted the objection down 74–1; the House voted the objection down 267–31.^[23] At the time, it was only the second congressional objection to an entire U.S. state's electoral delegation in American history; the first instance was in 1877, when all the electors from three Southern states in the 1876 United States presidential election were challenged, and one from Oregon.^[23][26] The third instance was in 2021, when Republicans objected to the certification of the electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania. An objection to a single faithless elector was also filed in 1969.^[23]

Nine representatives who contested Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio had previously contested his 2000 victory in Florida. They are Barbara Lee (D-CA-9), Maxine Waters (D-CA-35), Bob Filner (D-CA-51), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA-4), Corrine Brown (D-FL-3), Alcee Hastings (D-FL-23), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL-2), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18), and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX-30).