Asked about the protests by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Bush replied, ''I didn't ever expect to get 100 percent of the vote.''

Black lawmakers defiantly declared at a news conference outside the House chamber that they did not consider Mr. Bush the legitimate president, invoking the civil rights struggle and citing a variety of complaints about voting irregularities in Florida.

''There is overwhelming evidence that George W. Bush did not win this election either by national popular vote or the Florida popular vote,'' said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat who is the new president of the Congressional Black Caucus. Calling for electoral reforms, she said Mr. Bush should be ''on notice that without justice there will be no peace.''

Democratic leaders had hoped to avoid today's dispute. But more than a dozen House members, most but not all of them black, refused to be silent. There are no black senators.

The first protest came shortly after 1 p.m., after a delegation from the Senate carried in the electoral votes in two wooden boxes bound in leather. With less than a third of the House members there and under half of the Senate, Representative Peter Deutsch, a Florida Democrat, tried to shut down the session for lack of a quorum. He also tried to speak, saying, ''There are many Americans who still believe -- '' only to be drowned out by Republicans asking for him to be silenced for being out of order. Mr. Gore gaveled him down.

The alphabetical roll call of states began with Mr. Gore handing the electoral vote certificates to four lawmakers to examine and read them aloud. In one moment of levity, when California's 54 electoral votes were awarded to him, Mr. Gore playfully pumped his fist in the air.

Soon after that, Representative Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania Democrat and one of the four lawmakers reading out votes, reached Florida and its 25 electoral votes. ''This is the one we've all been waiting for,'' Mr. Fattah said softly.