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A 'push' from Bush, moves Gore a little 'more'

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November 17, 2000 

TALLAHASSEE, Florida--(UNB/AP) - As the stalemated presidential election drags into a second week, the thicket of court cases – two dozen by rough count - is growing denser.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush got good news from the federal court system Wednesday while Al Gore won a short-lived victory in state court. The winner in the stalemated Florida vote will claim the state's decisive 25 electoral votes and almost certainly the White House.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday to hear Bush's constitutional challenge to manual ballot recounts requested last week by Democrats. The recounts are only in four heavily Democratic areas where Gore hopes to turn up more votes.

The Atlanta-based federal court's unusually rapid decision to get involved could launch the controversy toward the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court refused to stop the counts for now. But Florida's top election official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, said she saw no reason to accept late filings.

Bush is trying to stop Florida vote recounts he fears could wrest the presidency from the tenuous grasp his 300-vote lead conferred.

Harris, sharply criticized by Democrats in recent days as a partisan Republican, declared it was her duty under Florida law to reject requests that four counties submitted earlier in the day.

Harris noted that her decision was subject to an appeal in the courts. Minutes after her announcement Gore lawyers and aides said they would be back in state courts, probably Thursday, to challenge her.

"It's an outrageous decision," Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani said. "It's a rash decision and it won't stand."

If it does stand, the only change in Bush's lead would have to come from the overseas absentee ballots that are due Friday at midnight. Harris said she would announce an official winner Saturday.

Democratic lawyer Dexter Douglass said the Gore camp likely would return to a state judge in Tallahassee who ruled in the case Tuesday.

Gore campaign chairman William Daley criticized Harris' decision as premature: "There was an attempt to bring a curtain down," he said.

A lawyer in Harris' office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they expected a formal contest of the election - something that only could happen after the vote certification Harris said Wednesday night she will announce on Saturday.

Bush, in an appeal filed in federal court in Atlanta late Wednesday, says hand counting violates voters' constitutional rights by treating voters differently based on where they live.

There was no word from the court when it would hear the appeal. Bush lost a similar bid in federal court in Miami on Monday.

The legal back and forth began Wednesday when Harris asked the Florida Supreme Court to block the hand recounts at least temporarily, and to consolidate election-related lawsuits. The court, without ruling on the merits of the case, denied her petition. The ruling left open the possibility that Harris could make the same arguments in a lower state court.

The Bush campaign has fought to stop the recounts on several fronts.

"The litigation is ... run amok now," said James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state Bush dispatched to Florida to press his legal and public relations case.

Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state chosen to oversee Gore's team in Florida, defended the legal strategy. "We simply must, in order to protect the rights of the vice president in this matter, ... take steps that seem warranted," Christopher said.

Just 300 votes separate Bush and Gore, but 180,299 ballots were tossed out because the voters chose more than one presidential candidate, didn't choose one at all or their vote didn't register, an Associated Press survey showed.

That's nearly 3 percent of the 6.1 million ballots that Florida citizens turned in.

"Simple human error is a presence in every statewide and most local elections," said Rogan Kersh, professor of political science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.