Bush lead increases to 900

AUSTIN, TEXAS - Republican George W. Bush is pleased that overseas absentee ballots have widened his lead to 927 votes in Florida and hopes the dispute over the state's presidential vote will be resolved soon, his campaign said.

The Texas governor had expected Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a fellow Republican, to certify the winner of the state's 25 Electoral College votes on Saturday and thus determine whether he or Democrat Al Gore had the 270 votes needed to win the White House.

But the Florida Supreme Court barred the state from certifying a winner until after it hears arguments on Monday (Tuesday NZ time) on whether recounted ballot totals should be included in the final tally.

Bush stayed out of sight at his official residence in the unseasonably cold and wet Texas capital of Austin, but his spokeswoman Karen Hughes issued a written statement when an unofficial count of absentee ballots showed the governor's lead over Gore tripling to 927 votes.

The new vote totals came after 66 of Florida's 67 counties filed results from overseas ballots, according to an unofficial count by the Associated Press, which was reported widely by the media.

"Governor Bush and (vice presidential nominee) Secretary (Dick) Cheney are pleased that the returns from the overseas absentee ballots have increased their lead in the state of Florida," Hughes said.

"Florida votes have now been counted and recounted and in some counties recounted three or four times. We are hopeful that once the Florida Supreme Court has heard the arguments in this case the laws of Florida will prevail and the election will be certified," she added.

Tucker Eskew, one of Bush's representatives overseeing the manual recount of votes in three Florida counties, described the governor as "very steady, very confident ... but eager to move on."

The Bush camp had anticipated a possible end to the 11-day legal, political and public relations wrangling over the outcome of the Nov. 7 presidential election with Harris certifying Florida's results after the overseas ballots were added to official totals that had given Bush a 300- vote lead.

But a flurry of legal rulings on Friday ended with the Florida Supreme Court forbidding Harris from announcing a certified winner in the presidential race until after Monday's 2 p.m. EST (8am Tuesday NZ time) hearing before the state high court.

A Bush aide said the court's action was "surprising" since neither side had asked for a ruling on whether Harris could certify Florida's results. Eskew called it a "momentary" setback.

Only hours earlier, cheers had broken out at Bush campaign headquarters when a state judge dealt a major blow to the Gore camp by rejecting a Democratic bid to have manual recounts included in Florida's final official tally.

Despite the Supreme Court's action, Harris was expected to release an updated vote count on Saturday afternoon, but without comment or certification. The Bush camp hopes that will prove to be a potent weapon in the battle for public opinion.

While the clock ticks down to the court hearing on Monday, hand recounts of 1.7 million votes in Florida's Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties continued.

Democrats believe these will favour Gore, putting him in the lead and handing him the White House. The Florida Supreme Court has not made a decision on whether the hand counts must be included in the state's final certification.

In another setback, an appeals court in Atlanta rejected a Republican request to halt manual vote recounting in Florida, which the Bush campaign calls selective, subjective and inaccurate.

Eskew also questioned the count of overseas absentee ballots, many of which come from U.S. military personnel serving abroad. He pointed out that almost half of them had been disqualified because they did not meet criteria such as a clear Nov. 7 or prior postmark.

"I think we expected more of the ballots to be counted," he told MSNBC, charging that Democrats had mounted "an aggressive statewide effort" in all of Florida's 67 counties to have ballots ruled out and thus "deny votes to America's military service men and women overseas."

Eskew declined to say if the Bush team would challenge the disqualified ballots in court.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: America votes

Florida Dept. of State Division of Elections

Democrats and Republicans wage war online