Fla. Court Orders Undervote Recounts

Statement by Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters, announcing Friday's ruling in the disputed presidential election.

A sharply divided Florida Supreme Court ordered manual recounts of all undervotes to begin in Florida's contested presidential election on Friday, breathing new life into Vice-President Al Gore's quest for the White House.

On a 4-3 ruling, the court also added 383 votes to Mr. Gore's total. Of those votes, 215 came from Palm Beach County, and the other 168 from a partial-recount in Miami-Dade county.

The high court ordered a far broader recount than Gore had sought, saying that so-called undervotes — meaning ballots on which there was no vote for president — must be recounted in all 67 Florida counties.

``Because time is of the essence, the recount will commence immediately,'' said the court's spokesman, Craig Waters.

George W. Bush was certified the winner of the state's contested election by 537 votes, and the court's ruling threw that in doubt. With the inclusion of the votes from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, Bush's lead now may have shrunk to 154 votes. Cheers erupted from the vice president's supporters gathered at the steps of the courthouse where Waters read a statement summarizing the opinion.

"It's not over by a long-shot," said Monitor legal correspondent Warren Richey, who has been covering the case in Florida.

"This is a real victory for Gore. But there are aspects of the ruling that may be vulnerable at the Supreme Court in Washington."

For instance, the inclusion of the 215 votes from Palm Beach County, which came after the deadline the court itself had designated for vote counting to end. Another issue is the inclusion of the 168 votes from the partial recount of Miami-Dade. Since these votes only came from a partial recount of the entire county, there may be questions of due process not being followed.

"If [the high state court] had just said, 'Count all the undervotes,' around the state, the court may have protected itself much more against being overturned on appeal," said Richey.

The opinion overturned a ruling by Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who had refused to order a recount.

As a result of the Florida Supreme Court's decision, Judge Sauls was ordered begin a recount of all the undervotes in Florida. Undervotes occur where a voter either didn't vote for president, or their vote is not registered by the vote counting machines.

Judge Sauls later recused himself from the case. Another judge has not yet been appointed to oversee the recount.

Of Florida's 67 counties, as many as 27 used the punch card voting system that has been the subject of so much controversy. Of those 27, seven of them were used in counties won by Al Gore and 20 in counties won by Bush. But those figures may be misleading, since the counties won by Gore tended to have much higher populations than those won by Bush.

Waters, relaying the court's opinion, said the votes were to be counted using the following standard:

``In tabulating what constitutes a legal vote, the standard to be used is the one provided by the legislature. A vote shall be counted where there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter.''

It was not immediately known precisely how many ballots would be subjected to the recount order.

But since the US Supreme Court vacated the Florida Court's November 21st decision, which said that dimpled votes should be counted, that standard can now be interpreted by the judge appointed to oversee the case.

"If the judge sets a standard that's different than the November 21st decision, which said you can count dimpled ballots, what does that mean for all of the dimpled votes counted in Broward County where Vice-President Gore picked up more than 500 votes."

While the court ordered the recount to begin immediately, it was not immediately clear where or how that would happen.

Across the street from the Florida Supreme Court building in Tallahassee, members of the Republican-controlled Legislature gathered earlier in the day in an historic special session, and the GOP leadership pushed legislation assuring the prized electoral votes would go to Bush.

``The Legislature is convened for the sole and exclusive purpose'' of making sure the state's electoral votes count when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 18, read John Phelps, the clerk of the House, speaking before a packed chamber and a nationwide television audience. The legislation itself listed the electors by name — the ones picked by Bush when GOP Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified him the statewide winner last month by 537 votes.

"From the Republican perspective, the legislature had done the absolutely correct thing," says Richey. "It's now in a position to advance a slate of Bush electors if a court-ordered slate of Gore electors emerges."

There was no immediate response from the Bush camp. The reaction inside the Gore's high command and among Democratic supporters was predictable.

"Two strikes, two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and Gore gets a hit," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of the Democrats who had said an adverse ruling could spell the end of the vice president's hopes.

In a last-minute legal maneuver, Bush's lawyers filed an unusual clarification with the Supreme Court, telling the seven justices they don't have authority to grant Gore the manual recounts he seeks.

"This Court does not have authority to grant such relief under Florida law or federal law," the Bush petition said, reversing comments Bush attorney Barry Richard made Thursday in oral arguments that the high court had "limited" jurisdiction.

Gore has been attempting to overturn Bush's certified win in the courts, and win the manual recounting of thousands of ballots he says could reverse his rival's lead. The winner of the state's 25 electoral votes stands to take office in January as the nation's 43rd president.

Earlier in the day, two circuit court judges rejected challenges to thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin counties. Circuit Court Judges Nikki Clark and Terry Lewis jointly ruled that "neither the sanctity of the ballots nor the integrity of the elections has been compromised."

Gore was not directly involved in bringing these cases, but he had spoken approvingly of the Democratic effort to erase 25,000 absentee ballots and tip the balance in his favor.

What does the Lewis-Clark joint decision mean?

"The judges are saying, 'folks, let's look at the big picture,'" said Richey. The judges looked at the case and found no allegations of fraud, he said. So despite alleged improprieties, the judges felt it was important that those votes stand.

The decisions were immediately appealed, but Richey said to judge by recent Florida Supreme Court statements, the high state court is not likely to overrule the decision. The justices spoke strongly in their Nov. 21 ruling on ballot-counting standards about not requiring "hypertechnical reliance on statutory provisions" that might disenfranchise voters.