Advantage Al Gore

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, DEC. 9. In a major victory for the U.S. Vice- President, Mr. Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court has reversed the ruling of a Circuit Court that refused to factor in disputed ballots, or what is known as `under-votes'.

The split 4 to 3 decision of the State Supreme Court breathes new life into Mr. Gore's quest for the Presidency. But serious questions remain as to how soon there will be a finality to a process now in the fifth week.

Significantly, the Florida Supreme Court reinstated 383 votes to Mr. Gore in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties which were not tallied in the final certification. This would cut the Texas Governor, Mr. George Bush's lead over Mr. Gore in Florida to a mere 154 votes. The State Supreme Court further said that `all under- votes' in Florida's 67 counties has to be taken into account in the final tally.

The legal victory for Mr. Gore on Friday evening followed a twin setback earlier in the afternoon when two judges in Leon County said that some 25,000 absentee ballots could not be tossed out, in spite of irregularities.

Mr. Gore was not a direct petitioner in either of the lower courts but was following the cases very closely. Democrats and supporters of Mr. Gore who lost the cases in Seminole and Martin Counties are going in for an appeal.

The Gore campaign is naturally elated at the turn of events with the top campaign manager, Mr. William Daley, saying that the Florida Supreme Court ruling was not just in favour of Mr. Gore and his supporters, but also for ``fairness''.

Bush appealing

It is undoubtedly a major setback for Mr. Bush, and his campaign is appealing against the State Supreme Court ruling, and, perhaps, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Already, the Bush campaign has a law suit pending in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta which is yet to make a determination on the constitutional validity of manual counts.

Mr. Gore's position may have been strengthened, but he is a long way off from being officially confirmed the 43rd U.S. President. In fact, serious doubts remain if there would be a President by the first week of January.

More than the legal obstacles from the Bush campaign, Mr. Gore faces a major challenge from the Florida State Legislature, now in a special session to pick the State's slate of 25 electors.

The GOP-controlled State Legislature has not gathered to miss a statutory deadline but to pick a slate of electors who will vote for Mr. Bush on December 18. A resolution could be passed next week.

The Gore campaign has said that it will legally contest any `resolution' of the Florida Legislature. The legal dimension is that if there are two sets of electors, the issue again ends up in courts.

But the real political tussle to the ongoing drama in Florida is being discussed and drawn up on Capitol Hill here. Hardline Republicans have vowed a showdown in Congress on January 6, 2001 - the date for congressional certifications of the electoral college vote - if Mr. Gore gets the Presidency through legal means.

Here again, there is a problem. Whereas Republicans have a majority in the State delegations to the House of Representatives, it is a tie in the Senate where the present Vice-President, Mr. Gore, will have to cast the tie-breaking vote!

Recount begins

The process of tallying thousands of under-counted ballots got under way in Tallahassee, Florida. Eight judges were to count the 9,000 disputed ballots from Miami-Dade county, monitored by four observers from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

``There was a decision overnight that four teams of two judges will do the counting. We want this to be a situation absolutely beyond reproach,'' said Mr. Dave Lang, clerk of the Leon county circuit court here. The manual recount is expected to be over today.

Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court rejected a motion by Mr. Bush seeking the stay of the count of under-votes it had ordered yesterday.

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