Iowa electors cap election with votes for Bush

Seven long-time Iowa republicans have cast the state’s seven electoral votes for President Bush. The “electors” signed the official election documents Monday in Governor Tom Vilsack’s office.”It is an opportunity for all of you to participate in American history,” Vilsack told the group. Don Racheter of Pella, a professor at Central College, was one of the seven electors. Racheter says he’s been a candidate for elector five times, but each time a democrat carried Iowa. This time, Bush carried Iowa and seven republicans, including Racheter, got to vote in the Electoral College for Bush. “This has been a 20-year dream-come-true,” Racheter says. He is going to Bush’s Inauguration in January. Racheter says he’d been invited before, but didn’t want to go until he’d actually cast an official vote as an elector for the president, and that’s why he’s going this time. Velma Huebner of Clarence says it was a wonderful experience. “It’s like making a piece of history, participating in a piece of history,” Huebner says. Vilsack, who is a democrat, did joke with the republicans once they’d signed their documents. “I have to commend you electors. I know you carefully read those documents to make sure that we didn’t slip John Kerry’s name in that,” Vilsack said. Julie Hosch of Cascade resigned as a state Senator in order to be an elector. If she had won her re-election bid to the state senate, she would have let the alternate “elector” in the first congressional district cast the Electoral College ballot for Bush. The electors’ names were on the November ballot, so a vote for Bush/Cheney was a vote for them as well. If John Kerry had one, seven democrats would have been Iowa’s “electors” in the Electoral College. Other electors who signed documents yesterday at the statehouse were Wanda Sears of Des Moines, Dorothy Schlitter of Onawa, Marilyn Bose of Estherville and Don Kass of Remsen,