Gore Not to Concede Election ResultsUS Vice President Al Gore will not concede presidential election results even if his Republican rival George W. Bush was ahead in votes by the Sunday deadline, his lawyers and spokeswoman said on Thursday, November 23.Gore's lawyers said the vice president will file a contest of the election in Miami-Dade no later than Monday. The announcement came after the Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade County in the state to resume hand recounts of ballots. "We want a full, fair and accurate count and the only way left to do that is to file a contest for Miami-Dade," Gore campaign spokeswoman Jenny Backus said in Washington. She said that meant Gore would not concede even if he lags in votes on Monday. Ron Klain, a member of the Democratic National Committee, confirmed Gore's position in Tallahassee, capital of Florida, on Thursday, saying there would be no need to concede the election because the two campaigns would probably contest results in Florida. The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal from Gore's campaign for resuming manual recounts in Miami-Dade County, causing a setback in the veep's bid to reverse Bush's lead in the state. Gore's lawyers suggested that the Sunday deadline set by the court be extended if Miami-Dade couldn't finish its recount, arguing that ballot counting in the county was "being frustrated by a deliberate campaign of delay and intimidation of local officials." The high court in Florida on Tuesday ordered the state to accept manual vote recounts by Sunday or by Monday morning at the latest, allowing the hand counting of votes in the presidential polls to go on in three largely Democratic counties -- Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. But Miami-Dade, the most populous of the three, decided on Wednesday to stop the hand recounting of all the votes cast on the grounds that it can not finish the work before the deadline. The first two days of counting yielded an extra 150 or so votes for Gore. The Democratic campaign filed an emergency petition with the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday morning, seeking to force the county to continue the recount. Unofficial recount results show Gore gaining about 180 extra votes from Broward, but none from Palm Beach. The veep lags behind the Texas governor by 930 votes in his bid for the 25 Electoral College votes, which will determine the winner for the White House. |
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