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Gore, Bush Lawyers File Papers with US Supreme Court
Legal teams from Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore filed briefs with the US Supreme Court in Washington late Sunday, December 10, previewing their cases for the 90-minute session Monday that could bring a close to America's month-long election drama.
With the nation's highest court set to hear arguments at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Monday, lawyers for both Gore and Bush met the deadline to file papers over recounting ballots in Florida to determine who wins the state's 25 electoral votes needed to move into the White House.
In final briefs, Bush's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to reverse a Florida high court decision that ordered a recount of thousands of disputed ballots. Gore's attorneys told the justices that voters have the right "to have their ballots counted."
Bush's lawyers said the Florida Supreme Court -- in ordering the vote count -- made a "wholesale revision" of state law that "overrides numerous legislative choices embodied in the Florida Election Code."
Gore's lawyers countered: "Voters have important rights to have their ballots counted, and the magnitude of those rights dwarfs any due process claim (Bush and others) assert here."
As deeply divided as the country, the US Supreme Court justices voted 5-4 on Saturday to temporary halt manual recounts in Florida.
The US Supreme Court' decision came after Bush asked it to block hand recounts of disputed in Florida on Friday.
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