U.S. High Court Steps Into Fray

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —  The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday stepped into the nation’s acrimonious election fight, prolonging the deadlock at least another week by agreeing to hear George W. Bush’s appeal of Florida’s recount process.

As Al Gore continued eating into Bush’s tiny lead in this decisive state, the high court surprised many legal experts by setting a Friday hearing on a challenge to the hand recounts that have yielded Gore several hundred votes.

The court agreed to consider whether to throw out the results of those tallies on grounds they violated a federal law governing the selection of each state’s presidential electors. Appropriately enough, the law was passed after the election of 1876--the last time the nation faced such an enduring impasse.

At the same time, the court declined to review a Miami federal court decision that allowed the hand recounting to continue.

The tallies, now limited to several thousand disputed ballots, continued Friday in Broward and Palm Beach counties amid increasingly heated protests.

With Gore gaining in the recounts and Bush picking up some absentee votes, the Texas governor clung to a lead of 675 votes out of about 6 million cast statewide. The winner of Florida and its 25 electors will become the nation’s 43rd president--barring any further twists.

To hasten a resolution, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would certify a winner Sunday night, opening her office to do so.

Earlier this week, in allowing the hand recounts to continue, the Florida Supreme Court set a 5 p.m. Sunday cutoff--but extended the deadline to 9 a.m. Monday in the event Harris’ office was closed.

In appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush lawyers said that Florida’s justices violated federal law by forbidding Harris to certify the election results on Nov. 14, the state’s cutoff for counties to report election results.

In a one-sentence statement, the campaign expressed satisfaction that the court agreed to hear the case. Bush himself stayed out of sight, working the phones from his Central Texas ranch and checking in with running mate Dick Cheney, who left the hospital Friday after a mild heart attack.

While disappointed by the high court’s decision, the Gore camp offered a measured response. “We’re a nation of laws,” said press secretary Chris Lehane. “. . . You either have to support the system or not. You can’t pursue your own legal recourse and castigate others for pursuing theirs.”

At the same time, Lehane reiterated Gore’s intention of fighting beyond Sunday’s certification, regardless of which candidate leads at that point.

“The entire campaign is resolute in its determination,” Lehane said. “. . . We’ve always, from day one, believed Al Gore won more votes in Florida than George W. Bush.”

Key Democrats showed no signs of wavering either--at least in public. Just to be sure, Gore, his running mate Joseph I. Lieberman and campaign chairman Bill Daley spent much of Friday calling party leaders to shore up support.

The cause was helped along by some of the GOP’s increasingly aggressive tactics, including the staging of bigger and rowdier street protests outside counting centers in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

On Friday, a group of Democratic lawmakers asked the Justice Department to investigate whether GOP activists intimidated the Miami-Dade canvassing board into canceling its recount. The board reversed itself Wednesday and abruptly abandoned its hand count--a move that potentially cost Gore precious votes--after protests threatened to turn violent. Officials said they quit hand counts because it would have been impossible to meet the state’s Sunday deadline.

In a letter to Bill Lan Lee, assistant attorney general for civil rights, the lawmakers asserted that protesters “managed to create a climate of fear and intimidation” in Miami.

The letter cited news accounts of “pounding and kicking individuals, pounding on doors, screaming threats and other intimidating acts” and said the accounts “suggest strongly that these events were orchestrated by the Bush campaign.”

Among the half dozen lawmakers signing the letter was Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.), who was manhandled Friday by a demonstrator while trying to give a TV interview in Fort Lauderdale.

Lieberman echoed the charges of intimidation Friday. “This is a time to honor the rule of law, not surrender to the rules of the mob.”

Speaking outside the vice presidential mansion in Washington, Lieberman called on the demonstrators “and all who may be organizing or encouraging them, to stop these activities immediately,” and urged Bush and Cheney to join the call.

At least some paid workers from Bush’s campaign were among the protesters in Miami-Dade County. One Cheney aide appeared dressed in a pilgrim outfit outside the court there, accompanied by another campaign worker dressed in a turkey suit. The men carried a sign that read: “Don’t stuff the ballot box.”

On the street outside the Broward County courthouse Friday, about 200 well-organized demonstrators blew whistles, spoke through bullhorns or shouted down Democrats attempting to do TV interviews, especially Deutsch, who represents the area.

Inside, the tallying of 1,800 disputed ballots continued on the sixth floor, far from the carnival of protest. With 1,102 of an estimated 1,800 questionable ballots reviewed, Gore has a net gain of 353 votes.

The board’s work was monitored by three high-ranking Republicans, former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, Michigan Gov. John Engler and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot.

After about an hour, Dole emerged from the courtroom and said, “I’m not going to inpugn anyone’s integrity, but this is bizarre. This is not the way to do it.”

In nearby Palm Beach County, about 100 protesters massed in front of the local counting center, chanting “Cer-ti-fy Bush! Cer-ti-fy Bush!” Many wore “Sore Loserman” T-shirts, a takeoff on the Gore-Lieberman signs, and waved American flags at passing cars.

It was not clear who organized the protest--those present declined to say--but all indicators pointed to a well-run operation with slickly produced signs, freshly printed T-shirts and operatives on cell phones relaying messages to people in the crowd. There were also ice buckets of cold drinks and sandwiches for demonstrators.

Inside the emergency operations center, the county canvassing board began the day hearing arguments--once again--on the standards for judging dimpled--or imperfectly punched--ballots.

The Democrats pressed the board to liberalize its standard and produced three witnesses, including the 83-year-old designer of the Votomatic voting machine, who argued that machines have flaws and voters should not be denied their rights because of them.

“I’m not very political, but I came to talk about technical problems, and, yes, my machine sometimes doesn’t work right,” said William Rouverol, who built his first Votomatic in 1964.

Republicans countered that incidents of machine errors were very small and that it was voters’ responsibility to check their ballots to make sure the holes were punched.

“I don’t buy it that people are now blaming the machines,” said Republican attorney Burt Odelson. “Nobody brought that up election night.”

The Palm Beach County canvassing board made no formal ruling and after the hearing turned right away to examining about 6,000 disputed ballots. It took officials about three hours to scrutinize the first 500 ballots. With results released from 243 of 647 precincts, Bush had netted eight votes.

But the slow pace raised questions about whether Palm Beach officials will be able to finish reviewing the remaining ballots in time for Sunday’s cutoff.

In Tallahassee, Fla., meantime, lawyers for Bush urged a Leon County Circuit Court judge to order 14 counties to reconsider their disqualification of about 1,500 ballots cast by Florida voters overseas.

The 14 counties are those with the highest concentration of military personnel, according to the Bush campaign, which hopes to bulk up the governor’s vote total with ballots from that Republican-leaning bloc.

Attorneys for Bush argued that ballots mailed in envelopes with no postmark, a late postmark, a smudged postmark or a domestic postmark should be counted. The Bush team also argued that undated ballots should be counted and any ballot signature that does not appear to match the one on file should be counted unless there’s “clear and convincing evidence” of fraud.

But Gore attorneys argued that canvassing boards should follow the law and set aside any overseas ballots that were not properly turned in.

Judge L. Ralph Smith voiced skepticism about intervening, saying “without any proof that any of these canvassing boards have not complied with the law, this court is very hard pressed to grant any relief.” But he withheld a ruling and Bush attorneys said they would present more arguments today.

The disqualification of military ballots has become a public relations disaster for Gore, even though the number is consistent with past presidential elections, according to officials around the state.

Still, several local canvassing boards took it upon themselves to reconsider their disqualified ballots. As a result, Bush picked up 24 votes in Bay, Brevard, Clay and Okaloosa counties, according to Associated Press. In Nassau County--near Jacksonville, in the northeast corner of the state--the canvassing board voted to use its Nov. 7 vote totals instead of the results of a machine recount that mistakenly missed about 200 presidential ballots. The result was a gain of 52 votes for Bush.

Separately, Republican lawmakers in Tallahassee continued preparations for a possible special legislative session to unilaterally award the state’s 25 electors to Bush. In the meantime, they joined his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Times staff writers Mike Clary, Megan Garvey, Jeffrey Gettleman, Michael Finnegan and Doyle McManus contributed to this story.

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