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NOVEMBER 22, 2000

Late Tuesday night, the Supreme Court of Florida unanimously ruled that final certification of the state's Presidential race must include manual recounts from three counties.

The court also imposed a deadline on the manual tabulations: Sunday at 5PM EST. Alternatively, Secretary of State Katherine Harris must accept them by Monday morning at 9AM if her office isn't open on Sunday.

The court's ruling is not entirely surprising, as they had earlier ruled that nothing prevented the counties from recounting their votes. But it was immediately praised by Vice President Al Gore and his running mate, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn), and it gives their campaign hope of picking up votes.

"The Florida Supreme Court has now spoken and we will move forward now with a full, fair and accurate count of the ballots in question," said Gore late Tuesday night. "I don't know what those ballots will show. I don't know whether Governor Bush or I will prevail, but we do know that our democracy is the winner tonight."

The response from Texas Governor George W. Bush's campaign, naturally, was negative.

"It is not fair to change the election laws of Florida by judicial fiat after the election has been held," said Former Secretary of State James Baker.

Bush currently leads Gore by 930 votes. Whether or not Gore can pick up enough votes to take the lead, however, remains to be seen, although an unofficial Associated Press tally showed that he picked up 266 votes as of Tuesday.

As of today only Broward and Palm Beach continue to manually recount ballots. Miami-Dade voted to stop recounting, expressing concerns about being able to complete the task before the Sunday deadline.

The Florida court didn't rule on one issue yesterday, however. The issue of dimpled ballots will be considered by another state court today, although the Supreme Court suggested that they be counted. Including these can increase Gore's votes.

Get the Opinion:
Palm Beach Co. Canvassing Board v. Harris, et. al.; Volusia Co. Canvassing Board v. Harris, et. al.; Florida Democratic Party v. Harris, et. al. [PDF] (Fl Sup Ct Nos. SC00-2346, SC00-2348, SC00-2349. November 2000)

Get a Transcript of the Hearing:
Florida: Supreme Court Hearing (eMediaMillWorks 11/20)

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