WASHINGTON - President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will serve another term in the White House.
Though 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 Mr. Obama the winner with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney's 206 votes.
Capping off a week that started with an 11th-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, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, sat together as Mr. Biden announced the results in his role as president of the Senate.
The session, which began with the procession into the House ch amber of the mahogany boxes containing each state's electoral vote totals, took a little more than 20 minutes. Four lawmakers - Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York; Representative Candice Miller, Republican of Michigan; Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee; and Representative Robert Brady, Democrat of Pennsylvania - 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 Representative Ron Paul of Texas, one of Mr. Romney's primary challengers. However, the fi nal tally fell in line with the popular vote.
The session typically occurs on Jan. 6, but because that falls on a Sunday this year, Congress passed a law moving the count, just this once, to Jan. 4.
