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Florida High Court Approves Hand Recount
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) - Florida’s Supreme Court approved Tuesday late night a verdict to include the manual recount in some counties, opposing Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris’s position on restricting the count to the November 14th deadline for counted ballots.
The court’s decision to include the ongoing hand count in three counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, came after a full day of deliberations by Florida’s Supreme Court’s seven judges. The verdict ultimately reached was unanimous.
But the judges did place a deadline in accepting the hand recount as 5 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday - if Harris opens her office for business. Otherwise, county canvassing boards have until 9 a.m. the following day, November 27th, to submit their revised numbers
“Allowing the manual recounts to proceed in an expeditious manner, rather than imposing an arbitrary seven-day deadline, is consistent not only with the statutory scheme, but with prior United States Supreme Court pronouncements,” the ruling said.
The decision is considered a victory for Al Gore’s camp which has been pushing for such a ruling, hoping that the manual recount would give them a victorious edge over the 930-vote slight lead held by presidential opponent George W. Bush.
What remains unresolved, beyond the Supreme Court’s ruling, are technicalities of how to evaluate the vote itself through the dimpled punching cards, that is, how firmly the card should be punched to be counted as a valid ballot. The ruling also left out the status of some overseas ballots that have been discarded.
Meanwhile, Bush’s legal crew was examining their options to fight the battle. Former Secretary of State James Baker, who is in Tallahassee, Florida, observing the recount battlefield on behalf of the Bush camp, said that the ruling was unfair and unreasonable, adding that it changed the rules in the middle of the game.
The Republicans are expected to fight the Florida court over the dimpled ballots. Gore’s team, fearing that this might delay the count beyond the deadline, asked for a hearing by circuit court Judge Jorge LaBarga scheduled on Wednesday to determine whether election officials should count the 724 dimpled ballots they have set aside for later consideration.
Of the 724 dimpled ballots, 499 are for Gore and 225 are for Bush. If they were counted, that would give Gore a net gain of 274.
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