Just when everyone thought the counting was over ...

TALLAHASSEE - Newspapers appear close to winning the chance to review contested Florida ballots from the United States presidential election in an effort to see whether President-elect George W. Bush received more votes than Democrat Al Gore in the decisive state.

Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis is expected to rule this week in favour of a motion by the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post for votes from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties to be returned to local officials so independent counts can be conducted, Herald officials say.

During weeks of legal and political wrangling over the election result, judges ordered ballots from the two counties to be transferred to the state capital.

Lewis has given objectors until 6 am tomorrow (New Zealand time).

On Wednesday, the US Supreme court ruled to effectively prevent a recount of disputed ballots, leaving many Americans in doubt over which candidate received most votes in Florida.

The court's ruling prompted Gore to concede and ended the fight for the state's 25 Electoral College votes that lifted Bush past the 270 mark needed to win the White House.

In Leon County, Lewis is likely to allow the ballots to be transferred from the Leon County clerk's office in Tallahassee to Palm Beach and Miami-Dade county officials, who will then allow the newspapers to organise reviews, Steve Uhlfelder, a a lawyer representing the Herald said.

The Leon County hearing, initiated by the Palm Beach Post, is one of several moves by media including the Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and Time magazine, to launch a recount in all of Florida's 67 counties.

For five weeks after the Nov 7 election, backers of Vice-President Gore claimed reviewing the "undervotes" was necessary to certify those not picked up by machines due to chads not punched all the way through, and also to decide which ballots had no markings for either candidate.

But Bush supporters objected to recounts, charging voter intent cannot legally be determined.

Republicans reasoned the vote count would not be legitimate, as each county would apply different standards to determine how a citizen voted.

Mark Seibel, assistant managing editor for the Herald, said: "We expect we will have a range of figures because the Palm Beach standard and ours will be different.

"I don't think we're going to come out with one number and say Gore would have got 'X' votes and Bush 'Y,' but it's a lingering question, and the process will exist if not to completely answer it, then to partly answer it."

Douglas Hattaway, a Gore campaign spokesman, said the Democrats would not object to the media recount.

"The ballots are public information," he said. "They have the right to review them."

The Herald reported a Bush campaign spokesman as saying the Republican Party would also not object to the count.

- REUTERS

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