Camps trade blows over count

WASHINGTON - All the pent-up tensions of America's unresolved presidential election exploded into the public arena yesterday, as representatives of the two candidates traded legal and personal invective over the conduct of the vote.

With the most powerful job in the world at stake, the United States was plunged into a political crisis of the first order - one that called into question the soundness and durability of some of its most fundamental institutions.

Even the vote recount in Florida - the state which will determine whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore inhabits the White House - was subject to controversy.

Bush's lead over Gore shrank to fewer than 300 votes, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press, with allegations of irregularities swirling and ballots from overseas residents still to be counted.

Unofficial recount results from all but one of the state's 67 counties gave Bush a lead of 229. The original "final" margin had been reported at 1784. AP called each county election official to get the final recount total for each candidate in their county.

Florida's 25 electoral votes mean the difference for both candidates, who must garner 270 electoral votes. Bush has won 246 electoral votes so far, and Gore 255.

The Gore campaign requested that some 1.78 million ballots be hand-counted in Palm Beach, Volusia, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Eight lawsuits challenging the results were filed in state or federal court, including six in Palm Beach County and two in Tallahassee, where race discrimination was alleged.

As the recount progressed through the day, the camp of Vice-President Gore made an extraordinary public intervention. Announcing that the Democratic Party would back legal action by aggrieved voters in one Florida county, Gore's campaign manager, Bill Daley, threw down the gauntlet to the rival camp of Governor Bush.

"We are taking steps to make sure that the people's choice becomes our President." Daley's words amounted to a direct appeal to the American people, past all legal and constitutional niceties. It also contained an implicit challenge to the current system, where the vote of the 538-member Electoral College, and not the popular vote, decides the victor.

Standing silently behind Daley, but in the centre of the picture as he spoke, was Warren Christopher, past Secretary of State, respected lawyer and sage, who is Gore's representative at the Florida recount.

In the cooler atmosphere of the previous day, Christopher had dismissed talk of any Constitutional crisis. There were no such denials yesterday.

Just two years after Judge Kenneth Starr released a report which almost toppled President Bill Clinton, the fate of the White House could once more be in the hands of judges and lawyers.

Both the Republicans and Democrats have sent squads of lawyers to Tallahassee, Florida's state capital, to monitor the election recount and investigate possible voting irregularities.

"With all due respect for the legal profession, the thought of two Secretaries of State and 60 lawyers coming on competing aircraft is not one that encourages me that we're going to get this resolved quickly," said William Bennett, former President George Bush's Education Secretary.

The two candidates themselves remained out of view. But behind the scenes passions ran high. In Austin, Texas, the Bush camp made as if it was business as usual, and their man had won, floating names of potential cabinet members into an ether where speculation about the election still seethed. Bush's spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, had earlier shot a warning across Gore's bows, expressing confidence that the Florida recount would give Bush victory and saying acidly: "We expect that ... the Vice-President will respect the will of the people of Florida."

In Nashville, Tennessee, members of the Gore team openly criticised what they saw as the "arrogance and bluster" of the Bush people wafting over from Texas. How dare they start naming their cabinet, they implied, when they had not yet won the election?

Emotions ran high in Florida, too. In West Palm Beach, a judge scheduled an emergency hearing into allegations of irregularities in Wednesday's election. The Rev Jesse Jackson addressed several thousand people at a tumultuous public meeting, thundering - to rapturous applause - about the basic Democratic right of "one person, one vote."

The protests were threefold: intimidation on racial grounds, misplaced ballot boxes, and the one that was specific to Palm Beach County, the design of the ballot paper. Electoral officers said they had fielded hundreds of complaints from voters who said they cast their ballot for the wrong candidate by mistake.

The alleged beneficiary of those miscast ballots was the right-wing Reform Party candidate, Pat Buchanan. Even he said that Gore probably deserved most of his 3000 votes. "I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake," he said. "Most of those ... are probably not my vote, and that may be enough to give the margin to Gore."

In addition, as many as 19,000 ballots were registered as spoiled in Palm Beach County. With the court hearing pending, speculation was rampant about what could be done: a new local ballot, an "adjustment" of the result, removing Florida from the national count altogether. Palm Beach County agreed to hand-count ballots in three precincts tomorrow.

James A Baker III, the former Secretary of State brought in by Bush to represent his interests in Florida, said: "That ballot was posted, as required by Florida law, in newspapers and public places all over the state of Florida. And we haven't heard one gripe about that ballot until after the voting took place."

Daley said courts may find the Florida result "an injustice unparalleled in our history." Bush chairman Don Evans countered: "The Democrats who are politicising and distorting these events risk doing so at the expense of our democracy. Our democratic process calls for a vote on Election Day. It does not call for us to continue voting until someone likes the outcome."

The Bush aides said that according to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County were registered to parties that supported Buchanan.

Evans said Daley "neglects to point out" that in the 1996 presidential election 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year.

Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said that it could be as late as next Wednesday New Zealand time before the state has certified ballot results from all 67 counties. She also pointed out that it would take even longer - at least until November 17 - to tabulate ballots cast by Floridians overseas and postmarked by Election Day.

Harris said that thus far 53 of Florida's 67 counties have forwarded recount materials to the state. She said the election board count was behind the AP tally because the board is only reporting "those that are unofficially certified."

After the recount result is announced, there will be a 10-day period during which candidates or voters can contest the result by filing legal complaints. If these are accepted for court action, it could be weeks before a final result is reached.

- INDEPENDENT, AGENCIES