Republican legal moves

Atlanta: Bush lawyers seek injunction to stop recount Washington DC: Bush lawyers start US Supreme Court appeal against Florida ruling

Eight judges in the state capital, Tallahassee, are counting 9,000 so-called undervotes from Florida's most populous county, Miami-Dade. Recounts are also due in any other county in Florida where machines failed to register voters' preferences.

Lawyers for George W Bush, the Republican candidate who still holds a razor-thin lead in the state, have been pressing in the courts for the recount to be blocked, arguing that it is unconstitutional.

Analysts expect Vice-President Gore to pick up most of the recounted ballots.

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Florida legislature has begun moves to appoint its own set of 25 electors to the Electoral College that actually selects the US president.

Republican challenges

As well as ruling in favour of new recounts, the state Supreme Court ordered the inclusion of previous ones that were incomplete or rejected by election officials.

That has left Texas Governor Bush, who had appeared on the verge of winning the election, just 154 votes ahead of Mr Gore out of more than six million cast.

On Saturday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an application by Bush lawyers for an emergency injunction to stop the recounts from going ahead.

The US Supreme Court in Washington has heard a similar appeal and is considering whether to intervene. A separate appeal is also pending in the federal appeals court in Atlanta.

There is a real likelihood that this constitutional crisis will do substantial damage to our country, our state and to this court

Dissenting judge Charles Wells

The head of the Republican legal team in Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker, emphasised that the Florida Supreme Court had split four-three on its decision, with Chief Justice Charles Wells dissenting.

"I have to conclude that there is a real and present likelihood that this constitutional crisis will do substantial damage to our country, our state and to this court as an institution," Judge Wells' statement said.

But Mr Gore's campaign manager, William Daley called the Florida decision "a victory for fairness, accountability and democracy itself".

Mr Daley called the ruling a victory for democracy

Mr Bush's legal teams have to move quickly.

Judge Terry Lewis of Leon County Circuit Court in Florida ordered the state's partial hand recounts to end by 1400 local time (1900 GMT) on Sunday.

The recount is up against a deadline of Tuesday for Florida to name its 25 electors, who make up nearly 10% of the 270 votes a candidate needs to win the presidency.

Counting the 111 undervotes isn't the big deal - sorting through 112,000 ballots to find them is a big deal

Manatee official Bob Sweat

Some counties warned that the task would be difficult as the disputed votes have not been separated from the thousands of other ballot cards.

"Counting the 111 undervotes isn't the big deal; sorting through 112,000 ballots to find them is a big deal," said Manatee County election supervisor Bob Sweat.

Computer problems

In Bradford County, officials face a similar task - wading through more than 9,400 votes to find a disputed 40 papers.

We did it right to start with and I'm not redoing it

Lafayette official Lana Morgan

Other counties said they needed new software to sort out the votes, and it was having to be flown in and installed before the count could even get under way.

Duval County said the new computer equipment was the only way to find nearly 5,000 ballots buried in 291,000 non-contentious papers.

And one election official, Lana Morgan in Lafayette County, told the Associated Press news agency she had not been informed of the ruling and had no plans to count any votes again.

Judge Terry Lewis ordered the count to begin

"We don't plan on doing nothing," she said. "We did it right to start with and I'm not redoing it."

The legislature's move raises the possibility that Florida - the key to the White House in the evenly-balanced race - could send two slates of electors to the Electoral College, one for Mr Gore and one for Mr Bush.

If that happens, the US House of Representatives, with its narrow Republican majority, could end up choosing America's 43rd president itself.

It is more than a century since a presidential election was last thrown to the house due to deadlock in the Electoral College.

Latest

8 Dec: Florida state legislature begins session to name its own nominees to electoral college.