Both Sides See Silver Lining
Bush communications director Karen Hughes said the campaign is pleased the counting has stopped because “this chaotic process was neither fair, nor accurate, nor reliable,” and “a full and fair count and recount has already happened.”
     At a televised press conference after the stay, Bush adviser James Baker said he believed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to stop the counting reflected well on the Republican claim that the Florida Supreme Court had made law rather than interpreted it.
     “It’s just not fair to change the rules after the game has been played,” Baker said.
     Ron Klain, a Gore campaign legal advisor, expressed disappointment, but said Gore had gained 58 more votes than Bush in 13 full or partial recounts begun today, including several in heavily Republican counties. However, a Republican source countered that Bush had picked up hundreds of votes statewide. Neither the Republican nor Democratic figures could be confirmed.
     Klain and David Boies, a Gore campaign attorney, said the newly discovered votes help support the Gore case that there are enough uncounted ballots to change the result of the election, and the campaign feels confident about the legal strength of the Florida Supreme Court decision that ordered the recounts. Boies said the idea of fully counting votes, including hand counts of those possibly not read by machines, is part of Florida law and tradition.
     “You’ve heard lots of the people complain about changing the rules of the game,” Boies said. “This is a rule that has been set in Florida for decades.”

The Latest

The presidential election is thrown into further chaos after the U.S. Supreme Court grants George W. Bush's request to block any new recounts. Oral arguments are set for Monday in the Bush campaign's effort to shut down the counting once and for all. Most of Florida's counties had been scrambling to count ballots before a Sunday deadline set by the Leon County Circuit Court. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Republican efforts to shut down the recounts, deferring to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court on Friday granted Al Gore’s contest of the state’s certified election results but the Bush campaign is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the recounts. The GOP-controlled Florida Legislature is set to bypass the courts and appoint a slate of electors, presumably for George W. Bush, next week.

Recounts Had Begun
Following a Florida Supreme Court edict on Friday, officials throughout Florida had been reviewing undervote ballots — which are those that did not show a choice for president when read by machines. As they did so, Republicans tried to block the counting in court.
     The Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta both had refused to stop the counts this morning, but then the U.S. Supreme Court did so.
     In a separate court ruling on Friday, Federal District Court in Florida ruled that some counties must re-evaluate military ballots that the campaign of George W. Bush said were improperly rejected, a Republican official said. Such a reassessment of perhaps hundreds of military ballots is expected to benefit Bush.
     The Florida Supreme Court ruling, combined with Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis’ determination that the work begin this morning, set in motion a frantic process to recount more than 43,000 undervote ballots across the Sunshine State today.
     Four pairs of state judges in Tallahassee were counting thousands of undervotes from Miami-Dade County, and elections officials in other counties also were counting or attempting to separate out undervotes and determine procedure in preparation for their recounts.
     By noon, counties were required to fax to Judge Lewis their protocol, estimated schedule, and anything necessary for them to get the count done by 2 p.m. Sunday. However, it was unclear which ones had done so.

Lower Courts Allowed Counts
But all along it was possible the vote counting could be interrupted, as the election dispute continues under a pall of legal uncertainty.
     Lawyers for George W. Bush late Friday requested a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court, and asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a Republican case against the validity of manual recounts. A Republican legal brief said the Florida court “embarked upon a recount plan that it knew could not be fulfilled.”
     But the 11th Circuit refused to rehear the case a matter of minutes before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. Earlier, the Florida Supreme Court had denied the stay request by a 4-3 vote, the same count by which the court ordered the undervote counting to begin.
     The 11th Circuit also ordered Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris not to certify any results stemming from the undervote recounts until the U.S. Supreme Court takes action.
     The Gore campaign filed its reply to the U.S. Supreme Court this morning. It said Democrats would suffer irreparable harm if the counts were interrupted, because delays might push the counts past deadlines for choosing electors from Florida.
     “There is no irreparable legal harm [to Republicans] that justifies a stay,” said David Boies, a Gore lawyer, on Friday. “Someone will be happy or unhappy, but that’s not a reason to conceal what those votes are.”

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, Dec. 12: Florida certifies its 25 presidential electors.

Monday, Dec. 18: Electoral College casts ballots for president and vice president.

Saturday, Jan. 6: Electoral votes are tallied in a joint session of Congress.

Saturday, Jan. 20: 43rd president of the United States is inaugurated.

Republican Victory on Military Ballots
In yet another court, Republicans enjoyed a victory in the case of military ballots they said were improperly disregarded by county canvassing boards under guidance from Democrats.
     The Federal District Court ordered the overseas absentee ballots from the military declared valid even in the case of ballot envelopes that do not have a postmark or ballots that have no record of an application for an absentee ballot.
     A lawyer affiliated with the Republican case said they faxed the judge’s order to canvassing boards in every county, asking them to apply the judge’s order and count the votes that have been illegally rejected.
     The Republicans requested that counties consider the uncounted military ballots as undervotes, and include them in any recount that is conducted. A federal judge and Judge Lewis later ordered counties to comply with that request.

Revisiting Chad
Although the Florida Supreme Court on Friday had ordered the hand recount of undervotes to begin immediately, it was not immediately clear how the process could reach completion before a Dec. 12 deadline for declaring Florida’s electors for Bush or Gore. And it was unclear when the count would actually begin in some counties.
     Lewis ruled on Friday night that he would not instruct the counties on the standards for counting ballots, but rather left the decisions about dimpled or pregnant chads up to the canvassing boards themselves. The state Supreme Court decision said the standard was a separate judgement as to the intent of the voter for each ballot.
     One of the biggest complications was that a number of counties never separated undervotes in their stacks of ballots before and claimed it could take them all day just to do that before they can even begin reexamining them.

Confusion Over Recounts
In Duval County, for example, voting machinery will have to be flown in from the south to separate out the undervotes, and they didn’t expect any counting to take place until tomorrow. Officials in Duval County were also having a difficult time settling on protocol, with one election canvassing board member suggesting during debate on the matter that the board might have to manually recount all 291,000 ballots there, not just the undervotes, to get an accurate count.
     Lewis at first announced that the recount for Miami-Dade County would begin at 8 a.m. at the Leon County Public Library by county officials, saying he hoped the count of the undervotes would be completed by 2 p.m. Sunday. The Miami-Dade ballots were in Tallahassee as part of a court case in which Al Gore’s lawyers were trying to get the courts to force them to be counted.
     It was later decided that judges would count the Miami-Dade ballots, with Lewis as arbiter if a pair of judges could not reach a decision on a particular ballot. The switch resulted in a slight delay, but officials had they hoped to finish today.
     Lewis said Friday evening the recounts for other counties should start shortly after the Miami-Dade count began. Once the counting started, he said, it would be very difficult to stop. He said that any questions or concerns about the counting procedures should be addressed directly to the canvassing boards. In addition, two state circuit court judges would be available on hand to quickly settle any counting disputes.
     Lewis said he would allow attorneys for both sides to offer written objections or comments to his decision this morning.
     Republicans filed 26 objections, concluding, “The path upon which this court has embarked tramples the rights of both [the] Defendants [Bush] and the citizens of Florida. It should not do this. Basic justice demands that it cease this standardless chaos, and impose some semblance of order on a process that will, in all likelihood, determine the next leader of the free world.”

Bush’s Lead Shrinks
Before Friday’s decision, Florida officials had certified that Bush had 537 more votes than Gore. But the court changed the number and trimmed Bush’s lead to 192 votes, according to an ABCNEWS analysis.
     The Florida Supreme Court added about 350 votes to Gore’s total, including nearly 200 from Palm Beach County and 160 from Miami-Dade County. These were not included in the tally because they were not submitted before the state’s certification deadline.

Court Orders Recounts
Friday’s Florida Supreme Court’s decision was met by both cheers and boos in front of the courthouse. The court ruled 4-3 to order an immediate manual recount of 9,000 undervotes in Miami-Dade County and an estimated 34,000 more in other counties across the state.

Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters announces the ruling. RealVideo (download RealPlayer)

     William Daley, Gore’s campaign secretary, called the decision an “important victory,” for democracy and praised the court for its “wise” decision in ordering a recount of all Florida undervotes.
     Before the U.S. Supreme Court intervened today, Democratic House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt called for Republicans to end court protests and abide by the vote tally including the undercounts.
     “We need to count all the votes,” he said. “We’re going to find out in the next day or two who the real winner in Florida was. That should settle it once and for all.”
     But former Secretary of State James Baker, a key Bush adviser, said Friday the decision was obviously disappointing to the Bush team and that he felt the justices had not followed the law in making their ruling.
     “It is very sad,” Baker said. “It is sad for Florida. It is sad for the nation. It is sad for democracy.”
     In its ruling, Florida’s high court said that “in close elections the necessity for counting all legal votes becomes critical.”
     But Chief Justice Charles T. Wells, in one of two dissenting opinions accompanying the majority ruling, predicted a “constitutional crisis” might result.