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Supreme Court Steps Into U.S. Election Imbroglio
by Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The U.S. Supreme Court produced the latest dramatic twist in the snared race for the White House on Friday, wading into the controversy over disputed vote tallies in the decisive state of Florida.
The nation's highest court agreed to hear a filing by Republican candidate George W. Bush that seeks to block hand recounts in the state, which are slowly eating into his slender lead over his rival, Democrat Al Gore.
The ruling capped another a week of lurching fortunes in which both sides had vowed to fight on past Sunday's scheduled official certification of the state's election results.
Almost unnoticed in the blizzard of litigation, Dick Cheney, Bush's vice-presidential pick, left a hospital in Washington, two days after suffering a mild heart attack - declaring doctors had passed him fit to serve in a Republican administration.
Two-and-a-half weeks after the election, the battle for the White House was still locked Friday on a vote-by-vote tussle in three Florida counties, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
Whoever finally emerges from the legal morass as the winner will get all the state's 25 Electoral College votes, putting him over the 270 required to win the White House.
Bush, the Governor of Texas, contended in his filing to the Supreme Court that the state Supreme Court in Florida had overreached its authority by ruling that hand recounts should be included in the state's final vote tally.
The Florida legislature joined itself to the Bush petition, with speaker of the Republican-controlled Florida House, Tom Feeney, saying the high court had usurped the authority of the legislature.
"The action of the Supreme Court of Florida changed the rules and standards established by the legislature prior to the election," he told a press conference in Tallahassee, Florida.
The decision by the Supreme Court to review the case means uncertainty over the November 7th poll will stretch at least another week, as the court said it will hear the case 10:00 am (1500 GMT) next Friday, a court official said.
Supreme Court justices decided not to consider a second Bush brief, which claimed that hand counts were open to political bias and unreliable.
Bush supporters hailed the Supreme Court's decision, saying it vindicated their man's decision to take his case to the top.
But Gore's lead attorney, David Boies, said he was not disappointed by the decision.
However, "I would be very disappointed and surprised if the Supreme Court were to decide this case, to intervene and change the Florida election result," he told CNN.
As the Supreme Court handed down its judgment, legal sparring intensified on other fronts.
Bush's team hit back after Gore's campaign said late Thursday it would make new legal moves if results of a hand count in Miami-Dade county are not included in the final state-wide tally.
Gore is incensed that Miami-Dade election officials halted their recount on Wednesday, saying it could not be finished by the Sunday deadline set by Florida's Supreme Court.
A plea on Thursday to the state Supreme Court for the count to be restarted in the populous county (650,000 votes) failed.
"They're going to contest every count ... the lawyers down there are going to fight every place they possibly can, and all we can do is resist the litigation," said Bush attorney Theodore Olson on NBC's Good Morning America.
Gore's team defended their announcement as a struggle for principle.
"Whoever wins those votes is going to win. This is not a question of, is Governor Bush going to win, is Vice President Gore going to win. This is a question of should the votes be counted," said Boies on ABC's Good Morning America.
Campaign legal advisor Ron Klain said late Thursday a petition challenging any official vote tally in Miami-Dade released on Sunday would be made "as soon as possible," probably Monday morning.
Palm Beach still had to recount many of its 462,000 votes, while Broward will examine 2,000 questionable ballots.
Bush's team Friday meanwhile lodged another court challenge to try to reinstate in 13 counties overseas ballots cast by members of the military, which were thrown out, as they did not bear postmarks.
Election officials in Palm Beach were meanwhile expected to decide what to do with thousands of contentious ballots, including many with "dimpled" chads - where the mark corresponding to a candidate is indented but not properly punched through.
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