Counting Electoral Votes--Joint Session of the House and Senate Held Pursuant to the Provisions of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1
COUNTING ELECTORAL VOTES--JOINT SESSION OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE HELD PURSUANT TO THE PROVISIONS OF SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 1 (HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--JANUARY 6, 2005) -- (House of Representatives - January 06, 2005)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, Americans turned out in record numbers and their votes have been counted. President Bush won with more votes than any other Presidential candidate in the history of our great country. In Ohio, in fact, the votes were counted and then recounted, and President Bush won by over 118,000 votes in my State.
No election is ever perfect. They never are. But there is absolutely no credible basis to question the outcome of the election. That is what is going on here today. I heard my friend from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) say, this is about the right for every vote to be counted. No one on this side of the aisle will disagree with that. We could not agree more. That is why we have HAVA. That is why we are going to refine it further. That is why we need to continue our work, as many speakers on our side of the aisle have said, to be sure that every vote is indeed counted.
But that is not what this objection is about. This objection from the other side of the aisle, and I am going to quote one of my colleagues who said, it is about ``massive and widespread voter irregularities in the State of Ohio.'' Not so.
I also read in the challenge lots of irresponsible conspiracy theories about what happened in Ohio. I was there. It did not happen. I also heard today from the other side of the aisle that no one has answered any of these questions. That is wrong.
One of the concerns that has been raised time and time again, most commonly raised, is that in Warren County, a district that I represent and a city that I represent, that somehow there was not a fair election because people were locked out. Yes, the media was locked out in the Warren County board of elections. It happened. But here is Jeff Ruppert, a lawyer for the Kerry-Edwards campaign who was inside and saw nothing unusual: ``It was as clear and open as it could possibly be,'' he said. Other witnesses included, of course, the Democratic members of the election board and several Democrats who were hired to help count the votes.
As has been said time and time again in Ohio, we have got a pretty good system. It is totally bipartisan, two Democrats, two Republicans, every single board in every county of our 88 counties in our great State.
This is not the time, ladies and gentlemen, to obstruct the will of the American people. It is time to get our work done. It is time to govern, not to object. Let us be clear. This is not Americans forcing their will on the American people. This is the views of Ohioans that have been clearly expressed. Every objective observer agrees. In fact, every newspaper in the State of Ohio agrees. Every editorial page agrees.
We have heard some quotes today. Here is one I love from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It says: ``The 176 Democrats who sit on Ohio's 88 county election boards pondered their jurisdictions' results, accepted their subordinates' good work, and are now turning their energies toward the future. Are they all dupes in some Machiavellian Republican scheme? Or do they simply have a firmer grasp of reality than that displayed by a handful of unrelenting zealots still ranting in the January rain 8 weeks after the election?''
Maybe we should look at some other States. Again in Ohio, President Bush won by over 118,000 votes. JOHN KERRY won New Hampshire, but by 9,200 votes. JOHN KERRY won Minnesota, but by only 98,000 votes. JOHN KERRY won Wisconsin, but by only 11,300 votes.
I want to thank my Republican colleagues today for not raising objections to those results in those States. We need to move on. I hope what we will do today, Mr. Speaker, is that we will vote overwhelmingly, Republicans and Democrats alike, just as the other body has just voted. I am told the vote was 74-1 to turn down the objection in the United States Senate. I hope we will come together as Democrats and Republicans today to vote down this objection, not to continue this cynical political ploy to try to somehow delegitimize the Presidency of the United States and his election, but rather to move forward and get on to the very important work that we have before us today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Cincinnati, Ohio (Mr. Chabot).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov