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Judge Orders 1.16 Million Ballots to Tallahassee
A Florida judge hearing Democrat Al Gore's legal challenge to the state's presidential election result on Wednesday ordered 1.16 million ballots from two counties brought up to the state capital Tallahassee to await a possible recount.
Granting a request from attorneys for Republican George W. Bush, Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls said elections officials from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties should send up all the ballots cast in the Nov. 7 election, not just the nearly 14,000 disputed ballots requested by the Democrats.
Sauls said the ballots should be sent to Tallahassee under police escort to await a Saturday court hearing that may decide on a count.
``Pack them up and bring them up,'' he told the court.
Shortly before Sauls issued the order, with no indication of whether a fresh count eventually would or would not be undertaken, Gore attorneys asked a Florida appeals court to order an immediate start to the counting of the disputed ballots which are at the core of its legal challenge.
The appeal underlined the Democrats' awareness of looming federal elections deadlines and their desire to quickly get under way a court-supervised count of the ballots, which it sees as its ``witnesses'' in a lawsuit to overturn a certified result that gave Bush victory in the state.
The Gore appeal was expected to be passed up to the state's Supreme Court on Thursday.
The Gore camp filed the lawsuit on Monday challenging Florida's certification of Bush on Sunday as winner of the state, and therefore the presidency, by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast in the Nov. 7 election.
Its case centers on the argument that thousands of votes were not included in the certified result and that Gore could have won if they had been.
Gore Appeals to Seek Immediate Recount of Disputed Ballots
Lawyers for US Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore on Wednesday, November 29, appealed against a state court's order denying an immediate recounting of some 14,000 disputed ballots.
Gore's legal team, in a two-step process, went first to the First District Court of Appeals to secure permission to file "an original petition" with the Florida Supreme Court, asking it to order the immediate counting of the disputed ballots.
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