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Gore lawyers ask state Supreme Court to step in

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December 1, 2000 

TALLAHASSEE-- (UNB/AP) - Racing against the clock in their challenge of Florida's presidential election, Democrat Al Gore's attorneys filed an urgent plea with the state's highest court Thursday to start hand-counting thousands of ballots.

With a trial court judge refusing to budge on the issue of counting ballots, Gore lawyers first asked the midlevel First District Court of Appeals to step aside and then filed their papers with the Florida Supreme Court just as it opened its doors.

"It is essential that this court act now to ensure that the counting of ballots occurs expeditiously," the Gore brief said. "There is no reason to delay counting ballots even one day," it said.

Gore's attorneys said that if there was not enough time to finish the counting before Dec. 12, the day states must choose their electors, "the resulting controversy about the legitimacy of the presidency would be destructive for our country."

"Strategically, it's the best move they can make, because it's the place where they have been most successful," said Loyola University Law School professor Laurie Levenson, "And right now, they need to find a way to beat the clock."

Earlier this month, the seven state justices, all selected by Democrats, overruled Florida's Republican secretary of state and allowed manual recounting in a few counties to continue for 12 days beyond the original deadline. That extra tallying brought Gore to within 537 votes of his Republican rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Gore is contesting the vote in several counties, principally vote-rich Miami-Dade County. Pressure grows daily, because federal law requires that electors be designated by Dec. 12 to meet Dec. 18 and cast their state's votes for president.

N. Sanders Sauls, the circuit court judge assigned to the Gore election contest, refused to decide on future recounts until he holds a hearing on the law Saturday.

So far, the judge's only action was to order parties to file papers and arrange for a convoy of police cars to transport about 1 million ballots to the state capital in case a recount is ordered.

Levenson said it would be unusual for the high court to take on the job of counting the ballots, an option suggested by Gore's lawyers. But she said the court could send the matter back to Sauls with an order to move more expeditiously.

"The strategies on both sides are very clear," said Levenson. "If the Republicans can run out the clock, they win. And the Democrats have to go to every court to try to get the ballots counted."

She said that unless Sauls speeds up proceedings, his very inaction will be seen as favoring the Republicans.

"By not deciding, he's really making a decision," she said. "If he doesn't take action, the inaction will doom the Gore camp."

Bush's lawyers, though arguing that no recounts are justified, also insisted that the more than 1 million ballots be brought to the state capital instead of the fewer than 14,000 requested by Gore's team. The action served to make a recount potentially more difficult and time consuming.

In another development, lawyers for Gore filed a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Thursday arguing that the Florida Legislature lacks authority to appoint its own slate of presidential electors - a move favored by some Republican state lawmakers.

Congress set Election Day as a uniform national date for selection of electors, Gore's lawyers wrote in the U.S. Supreme Court filings.

The 20-page legal brief, filed a day ahead of a showdown session in the nation's highest court, argued that Florida made its choice on Nov. 7, "although by a vote so close and under a counting process so flawed that the state's courts are still atempting to ascertain ... what the choice was."

Meanwhile, a convoy was wending its way Thursday from Palm Beach carrying its ballots to Tallahassee. Miami-Dade, which has the biggest job assembling some 650,000 ballots, said it would deliver the cargo Friday.

While the legal hurricane gathered force, and Gore made the rounds of talk shows to press his case, lawyers on both sides prepared for arguments Friday in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Legal action could continue in other cases that are being brought daily in efforts by Gore and others to prove that the state's electoral process was flawed and ballots were not properly counted.