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Bush
Ahead In Florida's Incomplete Returns As Dispute Escalates
by Patrick Moser
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AFP) - One week after
the closest presidential race in modern U.S. history, the verdict still hung on
a mere 300 votes, as a handful of Florida counties reconsidered manual vote
recounts.
The spotlight Wednesday focused on Florida
Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who set a 2:00 pm (1900 GMT) deadline for
the counties to justify in writing why they should be allowed more time to
complete their recounts.
Texas Governor and Republican presidential
candidate George W. Bush held a narrow 300-vote lead over his Democratic rival,
Vice President Al Gore, after Harris announced Tuesday incomplete, but
certified, election returns for Florida likely to determine the next U.S.
president.
The results, announced after a week of
legal wrangling that followed the November 7th presidential poll, do not include
overseas ballots due in by Friday, and could still be amended to reflect
recounts in some parts of Florida.
Harris, citing certified results received
from Florida's 67 counties by a 5:00 p.m. (2200 GMT) deadline, announced late
Tuesday that Bush received 2,910,492 votes to Gore's 2,910,192.
A staunch Bush supporter, Harris said that
any county seeking to submit amended results would need to present a statement
explaining its request by 2:00 pm on Wednesday.
"Unless I determine, in the exercise
of my discretion, that the facts and circumstances contained in these written
statements justify an amendment to today's official returns, the state elections
canvassing commission ... will certify the statewide results reported to this
office today," said Harris.
She said that unless she determined
requests for amended returns were justified, "the overseas ballots that are
due by midnight Friday will also be certified and the final result ... will be
announced."
Gore campaign chairman William Daley
sharply criticized Harris for allowing counties so little time to notify her of
planned amendments, saying it was an unnecessary burden on local electoral
boards.
"This new requirement seems to be just
another attempt to slow down this count," said Daley.
The Bush campaign, on the other hand,
presented no objections.
"Governor Bush is willing to abide by
tonight's certified count, and the count of overseas absentee ballots on Friday,
even though this certified count may include disputed manual recounts and would
cost Governor Bush votes," said Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes.
Earlier in the day, a court here ruled that
all Florida counties had to file their results on Tuesday, but may submit
amended results later if they consider a recount necessary. The court said
Harris, who is Florida's top electoral official, "may ignore such late
filed returns, but may not do so arbitrarily."
Both sides were fighting tooth and nail for
any advantage in Florida, because the candidate who walks away with its decisive
25 Electoral College votes will stroll into the White House come January.
Bush was hoping to get a boost from the
overseas ballots, many of which are filed by members of the U.S. armed forces
who traditionally support the Republicans.
But the Gore camp believes their candidate
would gain votes in recounts of the ballots they have sought in counties
considered Democratic bastions.
Vote recounts in Florida since November 7th
have significantly shrunk Bush's initial lead from 1,784 votes to just 300,
fueling Democrats' hopes Gore can ultimately overtake Bush to clinch the state's
decisive electoral votes.
Palm Beach County officials decided to
pursue a hand recount likely to start early Wednesday and last for several days.
Miami-Dade County decided against a manual
vote recount late Tuesday, after a sample count in three precincts yielded only
six additional votes for Gore.
Election officials in Broward County, on
the other hand, were to gather Wednesday to reconsider their rejection earlier
this week of a full manual recount after a sampling count showed a mere
four-vote difference for Gore from the original count.
Volusia County managed to complete its
manual ballot recount before the Tuesday deadline.
Anticipating further legal wrangling, the
Gore team added David Boies - a star of the government's anti-trust case against
Microsoft - to its roster, and he quickly put Harris on notice that her every
move would be scrutinized.
If she "arbitrarily refuses to accept
the amended returns based on the recount, and violates what this court has ruled
is her duty, which is to accept those results unless she has a good reason not
to, then we may be back in court," he warned.
Republicans are also keeping alive the
option of requesting vote recounts in the states of Iowa and Wisconsin, New
Mexico and Oregon, where Gore maintains razor-thin leads, in the hope of getting
all those electoral votes to offset a possible Gore win in Florida.
Meanwhile, a new opinion poll out late Tuesday showed the majority of U.S.
voters were willing to wait several more weeks if that was what it took to
produce the most accurate vote count.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed it
would be better not to rush with producing election results, according to the
NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
At the same time, the public was evenly
divided in the current election feud, the poll showed.
Forty-seven
percent said they approved of the way Gore has conducted himself in the
situation while 47% approved of Bush's handling of the dispute.
Thirty-six percent said Bush should be
declared winner now. Nineteen percent said Gore is the winner, but 39% said it
was too soon to say.
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