Florida court rejects Gore claim to recount

12:00 PM

TALLAHASSEE - A Florida judge has decisively rebuffed Democrat Al Gore's request for a further recount of votes in the state, handing Republican George W. Bush an important victory on the road to the presidency and badly denting Gore's fading White House hopes.

On the 27th day of the suspense-filled, post-election drama, Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls ruled comprehensively against the vice president who had argued that several thousand votes in Florida were never properly examined or counted and that others were improperly counted.

The judge endorsed the state's decision to certify Bush, the governor of Texas, as winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes, which would give him the required number to become the nation's 43rd president next month.

The vice president could also take little comfort from a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court setting aside a separate Florida legal decision that extended a deadline so that hand recounts of votes could take place.

Gore's legal team appealed Sauls' ruling immediately but legal experts said his options of fighting the November 7 election were rapidly narrowing.

Sauls said in his judgment that the burden had been on Gore's lawyers to show reasonable probability that vote counting problems in Florida had cost the vice president the election. They had failed to meet that burden, he said.

"There is no credible statistical evidence and no other competent substantial evidence to establish by a preponderance a reasonable probability that the results of the statewide election in the state of Florida would be different from the result which has been certified by the state elections canvassing commission," the judge said in his ruling.

"The court further finds and concludes the evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes," Sauls said.

Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said the fight would go on.

"As we've always expected, this issue is going to be resolved in the Florida Supreme Court," he said.

"That's been our sense all along and we continue to believe in the strength of our case, which is predicated on the fundamental principle that every vote needs to be and ought to be counted," Lehane added.

But Bush lawyer Ben Ginsberg said, "The law triumphed here today" and the judge's decision meant Bush "has won Florida."

Gore needs a legal victory that would allow one last count of thousands of ballots which he argues were never properly examined and which might help him overturn Bush's lead of 537 votes in Florida.

Gore is racing against the clock to overturn Bush's slender lead before Florida selects its 25 members to the Electoral College on Decemaber 12.

The way things stand now, those electors will vote for the Texas governor when the college meets on December 18, giving Bush a victory and the presidency by 271 to 267 electoral votes.

The nine U.S. Supreme Court justices avoided a decision on the merits of the historic dispute. Instead, they unanimously set aside a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that gave counties an extra week to allow hand recounts of votes and sent the case back to the state high court to consider again.

As a result of those recounts, Gore made up vital ground in the state that will determine the next president of the United States from 930 to 537 votes.

In the Leon County case, Gore's lawyers had argued as many as 14,000 ballots were missed in machine counts in Miami-Dade County. They also argued irregularities in Palm Beach and Nassau counties. Sauls rebuffed them on all these counts.

Bush was certified the winner of the Florida presidential balloting by only 537 votes out of 6 million cast in the state. But Gore's team argued thousands of ballots - enough to tip the state to Gore - were missed in the initial machine count and recount, and must be reviewed by hand.

Their challenge involved votes in Miami-Dade, where machines did not detect a vote for president on about 10,700 ballots. It also covered Palm Beach, where Gore wants the county's manual recount totals included in the state tally and has challenged 3,300 ballots he says were improperly rejected, and Nassau, where the elections board threw out the mandated state recount, costing Gore 51 votes.

Bush lawyers disputed Democratic claims the vice president would likely win the presidency if a recount were allowed in Miami-Dade. They also argued there was no evidence county election officials abused their authority or that punch-voting machines in question were faulty and warranted a recount.

In Washington on Sunday, Gore, aware of the country's growing frustration with the legal manoeuvring by both sides, told CBS's "60 Minutes," "It won't last forever, I'm expecting that it'll be over with within the next two weeks."

Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said it was time for Gore to concede because Bush had been certified the winner in Florida and time was running short for an effective transition.

"I do think that it's time for him to concede," Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I think long term, history would regard him in a better light if he were to bring this to a close in the very near future."

Also, in Leon County Circuit Court on Wednesday, one case brought by a Democrat seeks to throw out up to 15,000 Seminole County absentee ballots on the grounds that Republican Party workers illegally altered absentee ballot applications. That would give Gore a net boost of more than 4,000 votes.

A similar suit was filed by a Democratic voter seeking to disqualify 9,800 absentee ballots cast in Republican-leaning Martin County, which would give the vice president a net gain of more than 2,800 votes.

- REUTERS

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