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Florida High Court Hands Gore Hope of Victory
Vice President Al Gore waves as he arrives at the White House December 8, 2000. The divided Florida Supreme Court brought Gore's presidential campaign back from the brink, adding 383 votes to his total and ordering a manual recount of 9,000 disputed votes in Miami-Dade County and any other disputed ballots in other Florida counties. [Reuters]
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"Bush will appeal"
Florida's Supreme Court gave a huge boost to Democrat Al Gore's chances of capturing the White House on Friday, effectively cutting Republican George W. Bush's lead in the state to just 154 votes and ordering a manual recount of ballots which machines failed to read.
In a stunning blow to the Bush camp after more than a month of legal disputes over who won the pivotal state, the state's highest court reversed key parts of a lower court's rejection of Gore's challenge to Florida's certified result and his bid for a recount of disputed ballots.
In its 4-3 ruling, a summary of which was read to reporters by court spokesman Craig Waters, the state Supreme Court ordered that the tallies from recounts in two counties -- 215 votes for Gore from Palm Beach County and 168 additional votes from Miami-Dade County -- should be included in the certified results.
That would slash by more than half Bush's certified lead of 537 votes. The court offered the Gore camp hope of enough extra votes to go into the lead, ordering a manual recount of ballots in Florida that did not register when counted by machine -- so-called undervotes.
The order affected 9,000 undervotes in Miami-Dade county, a review of which had been urged by the Gore camp, and any other undervotes from the state.
Media reports have estimated that these undervotes totaled some 180,000. Subtracting those ballots that have already been recounted by hand leaves about 160,000 undervotes that would still have to be reviewed by hand -- a mammoth task given looming federal election deadlines.
The statement read by Waters outside the court building in the state capital Tallahassee said a Florida circuit court "shall immediately begin a manual recount of the approximately 9,000 Miami-Dade ballots that registered undervotes."
It also told the lower court to order a manual recount of all undervotes in any Florida county where such a recount has not yet taken place. "Because time is of the essence the recounts shall commence immediately," the court said.
That was a reference to the Dec. 12 deadline for all states to determine the representatives to the Electoral College, which formally selects the president six days later.
A Gore attorney, Steve Zack, later filed an emergency motion with the Leon County Circuit Court asking that the handcount begin immediately.
"We know that every minute is important," Zack said. "We just want them to start counting."
The high court said a ballot should be considered legal if a "clear indication" of voter intent is determined -- a standard on which the Bush and Gore camps have been unable to agree so far.
A certification by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris on Nov. 26 gave Bush the lead of 537 votes out of the nearly 6 million cast and the state's 25 crucial electoral votes.
Bush had said earlier he would appeal any decision against him to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whichever candidate wins Florida's electoral votes will become the 43rd president of the United States.
GORE CAMP WELCOMES DECISION
The Gore camp was jubilant at the ruling on Friday. A senior adviser to the vice president said: "Finally someone is going to open the ballot box and see how people voted. I think they are going to find that the people of Florida elected Al Gore."
A senior Republican swiftly condemned the high court ruling, saying all the members of the court were appointed by Democratic governors. Six of the justices were Democratic appointees, while one was a joint choice.
House (of Representatives) Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts said in a statement: "Today's ruling by the all-Democrat Florida Supreme Court sets a dangerous precedent, which places Vice President Gore's recount obsession over the rule of law."
In his dissenting opinion to the ruling, the court's Chief Justice Charles Wells predicted it could be overturned on appeal.
"I could not more strongly disagree with their decision to reverse the trial court and prolong this judicial process. I also believe that the majority's decision cannot withstand the scrutiny which will certainly immediately follow under the United States Constitution," he wrote.
The clerk of courts in the Leon County Circuit Court had set up a contingency plan earlier to call in court clerks to count the ballots at a nearby library. "We are prepared if we are instructed to do so," Clerk of Courts Dave Lang said.
The Supreme Court ruling, 31 days after the presidential election, came less than two hours after two Florida Circuit Court judges had dealt Gore a defeat in cases involving absentee ballots.
Those two victories put Bush on the brink of victory before the state's Supreme Court weighed in.
Gore's top attorney, David Boies, told the Supreme Court on Thursday that ballots excluded from the tally declared by Harris to be official and final must be recounted to determine the true winner of the election.
The state's highest court did uphold two points on which the lower court ruled:
-- approval of a Gore camp request to include the Nassau County vote total from a mandatory machine recount that gave him an additional 51 votes;
-- rejection of Gore's bid for a further review of some 3,300 ballots that he first contested after the manual recount in Palm Beach.
Florida House Minority Leader Lois Frankel was huddled with a group of state lawmakers when the decision was read. There was pandemonium as lawmakers hugged each other and quickly calculated where the vote count stands now.
Asked about the two earlier defeats in court on Friday, and then the stunning Supreme Court victory, Frankel said: "I guess we won the right one."
The state Supreme Court ruling -- throwing the result open again at least for a few days -- could pull back into the spotlight a plan by the Republican-dominated state assembly to appoint an alternative slate of electors favoring Bush.
The Legislature planned this as a stop-gap measure so that if legal wrangling over the certified state result continues up to the deadline of Dec. 12, the Legislature will in any case be able to send Florida's electors to the Electoral College on Dec. 18.
Florida state Sen. Daniel Webster, a Republican, said the Legislature would appoint electors only if there was no conclusion by the Dec. 12 deadline.
"If they can get all these recounts done, all the hearings, all the court cases, all the litigation and so forth done in time then there's finality. If not the Legislature's going to have to act," Webster said.
"If there is finality by that Dec. 12 date, we don't have to meet no matter who is ahead. If Gore wins then he wins. If Bush wins, he wins and there is no need to meet. The only reason we would meet is if there is no finality ... then our electors are in jeopardy."
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