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US Court Rejects Bush Appeal to Halt Hand Recounts
A US federal appeals court on Wednesday, December 6, rejected an appeal filed last month by Texas Governor George W. Bush's camp for an injunction to halt manual vote recounts in Florida.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, upheld a Miami US District Court ruling issued in November at the height of the recount controversy in the state's contested election that Bush failed to prove they had been irreparably injured.
The hand recounts had actually been completed before the appeals court ruling.
"Because proof of irreparable injury is an indispensable prerequisite to a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction at this time; and the district court's order must be affirmed," the judges of the federal appeals court ruled in a 128-page opinion.
But the judges emphasized that they had not ruled on the constitutional merits of Bush's argument and simply denied his request for an order stopping the recounts.
Bush was ahead of Vice President Al Gore before and after the recounts, and has since been certified the winner of Florida's presidential election by 537 votes.
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