Court slows down Presidential tally as Bush adds absentee vote

Court slows down Presidential tally as Bush adds absentee vote
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, NOV 18: Florida's highest court has intervened to stop the state's top election official from declaring a winner in the US Presidential election today as ballots from overseas added to Republican George W Bush's minuscule lead over Democrat Al Gore.

The Florida Secretary of State had been poised to declare Bush the state winner, likely ensuring that he would become the nation's 43rd President.

Last night, the court halted any certification of the vote and allowed recounts sought by Gore to continue in two heavily Democratic counties. It set a hearing on Monday on whether to require Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to accept the recounts she has refused to add to the razor-close totals.

A third county, Miami-Dade, reversed course and announced that it, too, would begin a recount. Meanwhile, a Federal Appeals Court last night refused a Bush plea to stop the recounts.

Bush, son of former president George Bush, was in Texas. Vice-President Gore was at his home in Washington. Both camps were on an emotional rollercoaster as courts and county canvassers ruled over the future of the US Presidency.

The count of absentee votes from overseas was the final installment in Florida's routine vote-counting process. With returns from 58 of 67 counties, Bush added 679 votes and Gore 402, giving the Republican a 577-vote statewide lead. Hundreds of votes were thrown out as election officials and lawyers from both parties analysed registrations, postmarks and other details.

In the separate recount campaign not yet endorsed by the courts, Gore had picked up 34 votes.

``The citizens of Florida surely want the candidate who received the most votes in Florida to be determined the winner of that state,'' Gore said in applauding the Florida Supreme Court decision to call a halt to any declaration of a winner.

The Bush campaign had been working behind the scenes to set up a possible Bush ``victory'' statement, followed by a news conference. However, those plans were put on hold.

In a day marked by emotional highs and lows for both campaigns, the state's high court stopped Harris' from certifying the results of Florida's election today at the end of absentee balloting.

It blunted a morning order from a trial court judge who upheld Harris' right to seal the results.

In an unanimous late-afternoon order, the court said they wanted to ``maintain the status quo'' while lawyers made their challenges in the state that will settle the race.

Harris was told not to act ``until further order''.

Gore's Presidential dreams rested with the courts and in the ballot-counting rooms of Broward and Palm Beach counties, and now Miami-Dade county.

The winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes will win the White House under the electoral college system that discards the nationwide popular vote apparently won by Gore and allots electoral power to each state roughly according to population.

``I want to be clear neither Governor Bush, nor the Florida Secretary of State, nor I will be the arbiter of this election,'' Gore said shortly after the high court ruling. ``This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people as expressed under the rule of law.''

The seven high court justices set a 1 pm (11.30 pm IST) Monday hearing to consider the validity of ongoing recounts in several counties.

The deep partisan divide, certain to shadow the winner to the White House, was evident in the political makeup of yesterday's key players: Harris is a Republican who campaigned for Bush, and all seven state Supreme Court justices are appointees of Democratic Governors.

Harris certified the bulk of Florida's votes on Tuesday, showing Bush with an agonisingly narrow 300-vote lead. That total did not include some 2,500 overseas absentee ballots, which had to be delivered to counties by midnight last night and their totals reported to harris by noon today.