Sides wait for ruling on snagged US election

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's Supreme Court pondered the issue of hand recounts yesterday and county workers soldiered on, examining thousands of ballots, in the United States presidential election that refuses to end.

The seven justices of the state Supreme Court studied arguments made by competing lawyers seeking to clear the way to the White House for either Democrat Al Gore or Republican George W. Bush.

The panel's decision on the legitimacy of hand recount tallies in three Democratic-leaning Florida counties could come at any time - and could finally resolve the November 7 election, one of the tightest in US history.

Two weeks after Americans went to the polls, vote counters in at least two south Florida counties were due back at work today. They were to continue reviewing ballots by hand in an attempt to assess whether Miami- and Palm Beach-area voters had tried to punch out votes for Gore, the Vice-President, or Bush, the Texas Governor.

In Broward County, the effort took its toll when the county's elections chief resigned, saying she could no longer stand 15-hour work days.

Yesterday's hearing marked a watershed as the justices - six appointed by Democratic governors and one a joint Democratic-Republican appointee - considered whether the recount process would count at all.

That question is crucial to the outcome of the election, as Gore hopes that manual recounts of 1.7 million votes in the three Democratic strongholds will overturn Bush's lead of 930 votes out of the six million cast in the state.

That is no sure thing, and early recount numbers seemed to indicate new Gore votes were not piling up as fast as Democrats had anticipated.

Still, Democratic lawyers pressed on at the hearing, telling the court there was still time to conduct the manual recounts and include them in the state total before the mid-December deadlines by which Florida's 25 electoral votes must be cast in an act of democratic closure.

The issue appeared important to the court, with Chief Justice Charles Wells asking repeatedly about the latest possible date on which Florida could determine its result.

Gore lawyer David Boies, celebrated for taking on software giant Microsoft in an antitrust case last year, said the court "certainly has the power" to extend Florida's original November 14 deadline for counties to report results.

Republicans urged the court to enforce the deadline and disqualify recounts, saying the time had come to let Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certify the election and declare Bush the winner by 930 popular votes.

"If we continue to wait ... we will not have any better understanding of how many votes were cast and for whom," Bush lawyer Michael Carvin said.

Afterwards, representatives of both sides said they felt the court was leaning toward resolving the case quickly.

Gore adviser Jack Quinn said the Florida justices had been "extraordinarily well-prepared," and he said he believed they were tilting towards the Gore campaign's argument that it was important to have all the ballots counted.

Barry Richard, the top lawyer for Bush in Florida, said he could not predict what the court would decide but expected them "do it as rapidly as they can."

Other legal wheels ground on in an election that has seen an almost nonstop parade of threats and accusations traded between the two sides.

In Palm Beach County, a judge ruled yesterday that he lacked authority to order a countywide revote in the election even if a confusing ballot cost Gore a decisive number of votes. A Seminole County judge agreed to hear a lawsuit seeking to throw out all 15,000 absentee ballots cast there.

Florida's Democratic Attorney-General Bob Butterworth urged state officials to reverse a decision to reject hundreds of absentee votes from overseas military personnel - a move Bush supporters hope will bolster the Republican tally.

- REUTERS

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