Missouri's 11 electoral votes officially go to Bush

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- With a few strokes of a pen, Missouri's Republican presidential electors on Monday formally handed the state's 11 electoral votes to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The brief procedure at the state Capitol that officially closed the books on Missouri's role in the 2004 presidential election attracted just a couple dozen onlookers, mostly family members of the state's electors.

John Schudy, a contractor from Mountain Grove, said he was honored to represent the state's 8th Congressional District, which includes Southeast Missouri, in the Electoral College.

"This is something I've wanted to do ever since I've been involved in politics," Schudy said.

Nine of the electors were selected at the congressional district level during regional Republican meetings in the spring, including the one in Poplar Bluff where Schudy was chosen. The remaining two at-large electors were picked at the party's state convention in Springfield in June.

In practice, all of Missouri's electoral votes are awarded to the presidential ticket that prevails in the statewide popular vote. The Bush-Cheney team claimed 53.3 percent of Missouri's popular vote on Nov. 2 compared to 46.1 percent for the Democratic ticket of U.S. Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards.

In theory, however, the electors were free to vote for whichever candidates they wanted. Since the electors are loyal Republican activists, there were no surprise defections as all 11 votes went to Bush and Cheney.

Four years ago when Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, won the national popular vote while Bush won the electoral votes in an election marred by a disputed vote count in Florida, Missouri's electors and those in other states where Bush prevailed were inundated with requests to cast their ballots for Gore.

Schudy said no such overtures were made to him this year.

"I did not get a single call," Schudy said. "It would have been a waste of time anyway."

mpowers@semissourian.com

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