The Associated Press

The differences in Florida vote totals remained paper-thin Monday as attorneys for Al Gore and George W.

Monday, November 20, 2000

The differences in Florida vote totals remained paper-thin Monday as attorneys for Al Gore and George W. Bush fought before the state’s Supreme Court over a manual recount of punch ballots that could determine America’s next president.

Republicans want to stop the hand recounts in three heavily Democratic counties. Democrats, looking for new votes to whittle down Bush’s 930-vote lead, are pressing to have them included in the final official tally.

About 6 million votes were cast overall in make-or-break Florida.

Gore spoke Monday from the White House via satellite to an annual family-policy conference he was to have attended at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University. "I appreciate this chance to speak to the Florida Supreme Court," he deadpanned.

The forum, tied to his family’s annual reunions, was to have happened in the summer but was put off because of the campaign. "We decided to move this one out of the heat of the election to late November," Gore said with a small, forced chuckle. "I just assumed by Nov. 20 the election would be over with. But I guess not."

Bush, the Texas governor, went to the Capitol in Austin for several hours of work Monday morning, breezing in with the words, "Feeling great."

His brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had his state’s image in mind Monday morning. "Don’t be left with the impression that because we can’t count votes that we are not a progressive state," he said.

A weekend tally of overseas absentee ballots stretched Bush’s official lead. Uncompleted hand recounts over the weekend in Broward and Palm Beach counties cut Bush’s lead to 834 votes as of midnight Sunday. The hand counting resumed Monday in those counties and started in Miami-Dade County.

Gore narrowly won the nationwide popular vote and holds a slight edge over Bush in the all-important Electoral College tally. Neither candidate will reach the required 270 electoral votes to be declared the nation’s 43rd president without Florida’s 25 electors.

Prospects for an abrupt end to the election deadlock were highly uncertain; Gore’s allies were not ruling out pressing ahead on other fronts if the state Supreme Court did not support them, and Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who is close to the Gore campaign, said on the morning talk shows Monday that the state’s entire vote should be counted again by hand.

"What we’re trying to achieve here is an election that has credibility by the American people," he said on ABC’s "Good Morning America." "That credibility would likely be enhanced if all Florida voters had their ballots hand counted."

Sensitive to Republican charges that Democrats were systematically challenging absentee ballots from military personnel overseas, Graham said military votes should not be discounted simply because they lacked a postmark.

Election officials should "bend over backward" to have military votes count, he said on NBC’s "Today Show." "The federal law provides that a postmark is not required for overseas stationed military personnel."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore’s running mate, said Sunday that election officials should "take another look" at discarded military ballots. He said he and Gore "would not tolerate a campaign that was aimed specifically at invalidating absentee ballots from members of our armed services."

Montana Gov. Marc Racicot complained anew on NBC about using hand tallying instead of machine counting as final arbiter of the Florida vote. "There’s inadvertence, there’s negligence, there is exhaustion that’s involved in this process," he said.

Lawyers for both sides filed legal briefs Sunday with the Florida Supreme Court, which on Saturday told Secretary of State Katherine Harris not to certify the state results until it decided whether to allow the hand recounts to be included.

Bush’s lawyers said it would be unfair "to keep the state and the nation on hold" during interminable recounts, while Gore’s attorneys argued that some counties should get more time to complete hand tallies.