Harris turns down request for recount extension

10:00 AM

WEST PALM BEACH - Florida's top election official has turned down a request by Palm Beach County for an extension of the deadline for it to finish its hand counting of votes cast in the US presidential election.

The Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said she would not extend the deadline of 5 pm Sunday (11 am today NZ time).

Palm Beach is the last county still to report its count, and its votes could decide whether Democrat Al Gore or Republican George W. Bush wins the state which holds the key to the White House.

With certification of Florida's vote, Democrat and Republican officials predicted at least another week of legal wrangling but indicated soon after that the pressure will mount for one of the candidates to step aside.

On television talk shows, spokesmen for Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore said both sides expected the ongoing challenges to continue at least until the US Supreme Court considers the case in Washington Friday (local time).

The nation's highest court is expected to rule quickly on whether the Florida Supreme Court correctly allowed hand recounts completed by Sunday evening to be included in the state's final vote tally.

Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said both sides should sit tight and forgo pronouncements of victory or public transition moves.

"We're now in a two-week or so period in which you have a contest on both sides about this election," Gephardt told the CBS "Face the Nation" program.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said he did not expect it to "take that much longer" than the court action dictated. "Over the course of the next week or so much of that can be done," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

But patience will wear thin soon after that, spokesmen for both parties indicated. A leading Democrat, former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, said the pressure would be on the candidate on the losing end of the court battles and vote recounts to concede the election.

With unofficial returns showing Gore still behind by several hundred votes early today, Bush was expected to be declared the winner in Florida.

"At this point in time the Democrats are unified behind the vice president in terms of the contests he can file following the certification of the vote. ... There is going to be unity through the Supreme Court's hearing at the end of the week," Panetta said.

After that, he said, both candidates must avoid "a scorched earth litigation process that takes us ultimately to the House and to the Congress and ultimately prolongs this whole issue and makes it very divisive for the country."

"There is a point at which there is a convergence of the rule of law, common sense and the national interest and ... then one candidate will be a winner and one candidate will concede gracefully," said Panetta, who emerged from President Clinton's impeachment scandal as a leading source of guidance for Democrats.

New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican appearing on the CBS program, said it likely would be Gore who must step aside, especially if Bush is certified winner of Florida's critical 25 electoral college votes, needed by either man to clinch the presidency, and the certification stands.

"The American people will accept the fact that (Bush) has won the presidency," Pataki said. "Gov. Bush has won Florida and if that is certified I would hope that would be the end of it and Vice President Gore would do the right thing."

Panetta said the high court's decision will be critical.

"It would be in good keeping for both of these candidates to say to the country that they will abide by whatever the Supreme Court says. They are sworn as future presidents to uphold and defend the Constitution. There is no better way to resolve this than have the Supreme Court of this country come out with a final ruling," he said.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, another leading Democrat, agreed, telling ABC's "This Week" that "the only way to get legitimacy here ... is to let the law speak clearly and it will before Dec. 12," the date by which Florida's electors are to be selected.

Sen. John Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat, told ABC he too hoped the high court would be the final word on the election dispute. "It has to end but it should be through the laws of this country, not through the politicians," he said.

And Gephardt expressed confidence Gore would go along with a Supreme Court decision, to his benefit or not. "I'm sure that Al Gore and the Gore campaign is going to abide by the laws and the decisions of all the courts of our country, including the Supreme Court," the House Democratic leader said.

- REUTERS

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