Campaign Awaits High Court Ruling
By DAVID ESPO
.c The Associated Press
Two unforgettable weeks after Election Day, George W. Bush and Al Gore are sweating out a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court and manual recounts in three Democratic counties as they wait to learn who will sit in the White House.
``The court is certainly aware of the historic nature of this session,'' Florida Chief Justice Charles T. Wells said Monday as he presided over 2 1/2 hours of nationally televised legal arguments on the state's contested election. The justices, he added, are ``aware that this is a matter of utmost and vital importance to our nation our state and our world.''
There was no disputing that, given that the winner of the battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes, either the Republican governor of Texas or the Democratic vice president, stands to become the nation's 43rd president on Jan. 20.
Neither Wells nor any of the other six high court justices gave any indication of when the court might issue a ruling on whether to allow manual recounts from three counties to count in the final election totals. The Bush campaign hopes the court will snuff out the recounts, and the Gore campaign hopes the court will give them a legal imprimatur, and provide a standard for recount officials to employ.
The justices worked under one timetable as canvassing boards in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties labored on their own schedules to conduct the hand counts the Gore campaign wants.
All arranged to continue the counts on Tuesday.
Bush holds a 930-vote lead in statewide results that Secretary of State Katherine Harris has been barred from certifying, and Gore hopes to overtake his rival in the three heavily Democratic counties where he has propelled the recounts forward.
When the counting stopped Monday evening the situation looked like this:
Miami-Dade County: With 67 of 614 precincts recounted, Gore had gained 46 votes over last week's official vote totals.
Broward County: With 544 of 609 precincts recounted plus 139 absentee ballots, Gore had gained 117 votes.
Palm Beach County: With 103 of 531 precincts recounted by hand, Gore had gained three votes
That represented a net gain of 166 votes for Gore if - a matter for the court to decide - the recounts are valid.
Developments in the counting rooms bordered on chaotic at times, a sharp contrast to the crisp proceedings that Wells conducted in the high court in Tallahassee.
There, all seven justices peppered lawyers with questions about a deadline in the state law for certifying results - the one Harris cited last week - as well as contradictory directives elsewhere in the law. There was discussion, as well, about a possible statewide recount, and about conflict between state law and federal statutes relating to the appointment of electors.
Wells, in particular, asked lawyers how long the state had to certify a winner and still have its voice heard when the electors meet to pick a president.
Democrats said Dec. 12 was the answer to Wells' oft-asked question, six days before the Electoral College meets. The chief justice's questions sketched a scenario in which recounts might continue, perhaps into December.
At one point, Wells seemed to suggest that Harris might be permitted to certify a winner soon so Democrats would have time to challenge the next step in the process - appointment of the state's electors - and still resolve the dispute before the Electoral College meets Dec. 18.
Bush partisans seemed troubled by the implications of the questions asked in court, but Gore advisers expressed frustration by their relatively small gains in the county recounts.
Broward County elections supervisor Jane Carroll, the only Republican on the three-member board, announced plans to retire at day's end. ``I feel like I'm incarcerated,'' said the 70-year-old veteran local official, ``with lunch and dinner brought into me and six attorneys sitting across from me the entire day.''
Circuit Judge Robert Rosenberg, an appointee of GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, was named to the canvassing board to replace her.
In Miami-Dade, Republicans said the Democratic-dominated board had ``rigged'' the recount, but Democrats denied it.
``This thing is rigged,'' said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio. ``It is a joke on our democracy.''
Kendall Coffey, a Democratic attorney, responded: ``I think any attempt to raise fraud or any other type of innuendo is nothing short of outrageous.''
In Palm Beach County, Judge Charles Burton, head of the county canvassing board, said, ``There's been very little change'' with votes recounted in about one-fifth of the precincts.
In yet another controversy, three days after Democrats challenged hundreds of overseas military ballots, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, an ally of Gore, urged local officials to reconsider the disqualifications.
The nonbinding letter also called on county election officials to seek a ``clarifying opinion'' from Harris.
Harris, a Republican allied with Bush, already is on record in opposition to changes in the state's Election Day totals, despite efforts by Gore to update the figures with the results of manual recounts. Butterworth's letter confronted her with a similar question, but this time on a matter where the Bush campaign said they would be favored if more overseas military ballots were counted.
Harris offered no comment. But Clay Roberts, head of the Division of Elections, said state officials were ``forbidden by law to look beyond'' the returns submitted by the counties.
AP-NY-11-21-00 0203EST
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