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By TIM NICKENS and DIANE RADO
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 15, 2000
With the presidency still hanging in the balance, George W. Bush leads Al Gore this morning by exactly 300 votes out of nearly 6-million cast in Florida.
Little else is clear, and today promises still another showdown.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris accepted certified returns from all 67 counties Tuesday night that verify Bush's narrow lead, with overseas ballots due by Friday. Then she delivered an ultimatum to three South Florida counties contemplating hand recounts of hundreds of thousands of votes: Explain by 2 p.m. today why they should be allowed to adjust their totals.
"Unless I determine, in the exercise of my discretion, that these facts and circumstances . . . justify an amendment to today's official returns" the county results will stand, Harris said at a news conference in Tallahassee.
Less than an hour after Harris spoke, the Miami-Dade County canvassing board voted not to conduct a countywide hand recount. Broward County has not determined how to proceed, leaving only Palm Beach County poised to begin a hand recount today.
The fluid situation over the hand recounts left both the Bush and Gore campaigns unhappy and appears certain to trigger another round of court battles.
Bush contends the hand recounts are inaccurate and opposes them.
"These Democratic counties are no longer recounting, they are reinventing -- attempting to reinterpret the results of the election and the intentions of voters by subjective, not objective, means," Bush communications director Karen Hughes said.
But Gore campaign manager William Daley argued that the hand recounts are necessary to get accurate vote totals. He complained that Harris -- a co-chair of Bush's Florida campaign -- is blocking that goal and ignoring a judge's order by demanding that the counties justify hand recounts before they do the work.
"Every Floridian has a right to have his or her vote counted," Daley said. "The Bush campaign and the secretary of state are trying to cut off that right."
If Harris refuses to consider the hand recounts, Gore is expected to head back to court.
Tuesday night's declaration by Harris and complaints by the campaigns played out against a backdrop of court hearings and escalating rhetoric.
In the most influential court decision, Leon Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis issued a Solomon-like ruling that offered something to both sides.
Lewis ruled that counties had to send their certified election returns to the state by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline, which is what Bush wanted. But the judge also ruled that Harris must consider adding the votes from the manual recounts when they are completed, which is what Gore sought.
Aside from Lewis' ruling, Tuesday was another day of developments on several fronts:
Hand recounts in Broward and Palm Beach counties stalled following an advisory opinion from Harris that was sought by Florida Republican Party Chairman Al Cardenas. The opinion said state law prevented the counties from recounting ballots merely because they were marked improperly.
Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat and Gore's state campaign chairman, issued an opinion saying Harris was wrong. Democrats went to court in Broward and Palm Beach, and judges in both counties directed the canvassing boards not to abide by Harris' opinion.
Former Secretary of State James Baker, who is monitoring the Florida recount for Bush, offered to accept hand recounts that were finished by the end of the day if Gore would agree to drop all legal action and accept the results. Gore refused.
Volusia County completed its hand recount before the 5 p.m. deadline and found that Gore made a net gain of 98 votes. The county also appealed Lewis' court decision in Tallahassee.
Bush filed a notice of appeal of a U.S. District Court judge's refusal on Monday to stop all hand recounts with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Daley explained Gore's position to Democratic members of Congress and received a standing ovation in one private meeting with House Democrats.
Gore still leads in the national popular vote and has won 262 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia. Bush has won 29 states and has 246 electoral votes. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
New Mexico remains too close to call, with Gore holding a narrow lead. But that state's five electoral votes are not enough to decide the presidency.
Florida's 25 electoral votes will be enough for either Gore or Bush to win. The first mechanical count of the Nov. 7 election showed Bush ahead by 1,784 votes. Now that lead has narrowed to an even 300 votes, with the overseas votes due by midnight Friday and the fate of hand recounts still uncertain.
The focus Tuesday was not on the capitols in Washington and Tallahassee but on the modern Leon County courthouse. A mob of reporters filled the courthouse rotunda, where court administrator Terre Cass briefly read from Lewis' order shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday.
In the nine-page order, Lewis wrote that state law is aimed at balancing a desire for accuracy in vote counting with a desire for finality. He said Harris "has come down hard on the side of finality" when she refused to consider any hand recounts not finished by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Under that theory, the judge wrote, large counties might not have time to consider requests to recount votes by hand and still meet the state deadline for certifying its totals to the state.
"This would mean . . . that only in sparsely populated counties could a canvassing board safely exercise what the Legislature has clearly intended to be an option where the board has a real question as to the accuracy of a vote," Lewis wrote.
Instead, Lewis concluded, counties were required to certify their results to the state by 5 p.m. Tuesday. He said they can amend their returns later after finishing a hand recount, but it is up to Harris to decide whether to include or ignore the late-filed returns before certifying the results and declaring the winner.
"To determine ahead of time that such returns will be ignored, however, unless caused by some act of God, is not the exercise of discretion. It is the abdication of that discretion," Lewis wrote.
"Obviously," he continued, "the list of scenarios is almost endless and the questions that would need to be asked in properly exercising discretion as to whether to ignore or not ignore late-filed returns are numerous. The secretary may, and should, consider all of the facts and circumstances."
As cable networks described the order as a setback for Gore, the vice president's advisers and lawyers declared victory.
"Under this decision, there is now a vehicle for a full, fair and accurate tabulation of the votes cast by the citizens of Florida," said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is overseeing the Florida recount for Gore.
The Gore team called on the Florida counties to continue their hand recounts.
"The veil has been lifted," said David Boies, a Gore attorney who argued the government's antitrust case against Microsoft.
"They've been told to go ahead and finish the recounts as fast as you can. . . . We would all hope the secretary of state, having received this guidance from the court, would do the right thing."
By Tuesday night, Harris appeared determined to exercise her discretion in determining whether to accept hand recounts before knowing the totals and how they would affect the election.
Gore made no public statements Tuesday in Washington, and Bush remained secluded at his Texas ranch. But the Gore campaign is spending considerable energy keeping Democrats in Congress up to date and holding their support.
Gore running mate Joseph Lieberman held a conference call for House Democrats on Monday. On Tuesday, Daley met with party leaders in the House and Senate.
Senators said they were hopeful the Florida process would allow all votes to be counted but still conclude the recount quickly.
"The message is to let the will of the people speak," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "There is no reason to truncate the process."
-- Times staff writers Bill Adair, David Adams, John Balz, Julie Hauserman, Jean Heller, David Karp, Lucy Morgan, Shelby Oppel and Thomas C. Tobin contributed to this report.