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Florida Court to Hear Gore's Contest Case Saturday
A Florida judge on Tuesday decided to set a hearing on Saturday, December 2, for the contest case brought by US Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore challenging the state government's certification of election results.
Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls also ordered that thousands of disputed ballots be brought under police escort to Florida's state capital, Tallahassee, in case they need to be counted or examined.
Sauls said that Saturday's hearing would "deal with all matters that are legal and evidentiary."
As for the 3,300 questionable ballots from Palm Beach County and more than 10,000 from Miami-Dade County brought to Tallahassee, the judge said he was unsure whether the ballots would need to be counted or examined.
Racing against the clock, Gore's lawyers filed an emergency motion earlier on Tuesday seeking completion of their case by December 9, three days before the state's deadline to name its electors.
The lawyers asked the court to immediately order the counting of the questionable votes in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach.
But Republican lawyers objected to the proposal, arguing that if the judge ordered a count of disputed ballots, all votes cast in the two counties should be recounted.
Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican, certified on Sunday that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush won the state's election with a 537-vote margin out of nearly 6 million cast on November 7. Gore contested the results, arguing that they are "incorrect and incomplete."
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