DENVER -- Democratic National Convention delegates have started a roll call of states, a procedural necessity in a history-making process that will end in Barack Obama's coronation as the party's presidential choice.

As the states were called by the chair in alphabetical order, delegation heads announced votes for both Obama and his vanquished rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose name was put in nomination earlier as a symbolic gesture.

The roll call was the culmination of a wrenching, 20-month Democratic race for the presidency, and it set Obama up for a grinding general election campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain.