If all else fails, there's Plan B

By MARY DEJEVSKY

WASHINGTON - Should George W. Bush fail in his efforts to have the first statewide recount in Florida declared the final result, campaign officials are considering a Plan B.

This would entail one or more calls for recounts in states that were declared narrow Gore victories on election night and which could, if there were sufficient reversals, enable Bush to win the White House without winning Florida.

There are four such states: Oregon in the northwest, New Mexico in the southwest, Iowa and Wisconsin in the midwest. They account for 30 votes in the Electoral College - five more than Florida.

Al Gore was declared the victor in four of these states last Wednesday with margins of less than 8000. The fifth state, Oregon, has a postal ballot and the votes are still being counted. The size of Gore's lead places it reasonably securely in the Gore column, but the margin could be reduced when the count is complete.

A statutory recount in New Mexico - triggered by the closeness of the first result - has now given Bush victory by just four votes, overturning a Gore majority of 6825. If this result stands, it would give Bush an additional five electoral college votes. There is no chance that Gore can win without Florida, so his efforts will be concentrated there and the New Mexico result could be allowed to stand without further challenge.

The bigger prizes are Iowa and Wisconsin, with respectively seven and 11 electoral college votes. Election officials of both parties in both states maintain that their election procedures are well regulated and that the possibilities for the sort of lawsuits brought by voters in Florida would be minimal. The margins of Gore's victory in both states, however, were narrower than in New Mexico, so the Bush camp could deem it worth calling for recounts there.

The recounts need not be statewide. The Republicans could follow the strategy of the Democrats in Florida, calling for manual counts in specific counties where, they might calculate, the Republican tally would be most likely to rise.

Bush currently has 246 electoral college votes (not counting either Florida or New Mexico). Were he to overturn Gore's victories in Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon, he could win without needing New Mexico.

The Gore campaign could then be tempted to bring the northeastern state of New Hampshire into the equation. Bush won there on election night, with 7282 votes. Were that result overturned, Bush would need New Mexico. But Gore currently has 262 electoral college votes (without New Mexico or Florida), so if he kept Oregon, Iowa and Wisconsin, took New Mexico back and added New Hampshire he, too, could just win without Florida.

- INDEPENDENT

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