By
The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Florida's Supreme Court ruled unanimously last night that manual recounts may continue in the state's contested presidential election until Sunday or Monday, when a final statewide vote must be certified.
The ruling triggered a sharply worded attack from George W. Bush's campaign, and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III speculated aloud that the GOP-controlled Legislature might attempt to "affirm the original rules" by which the election was held.
The 43-page ruling was a setback for Republican Bush, who holds a 930-vote lead in the state that stands to settle the race for the White House. It also gave hope to Al Gore, who is slowly eroding his rival's lead as recounts continue in three counties at the Democrat's initiative.
"We will move forward now with a full, fair and accurate count of the ballots in question," the vice president said a short while after the ruling was issued. "I don't know what those ballots will show. I don't know whether Governor Bush or I will prevail. We do know our democracy is the winner tonight."
Baker disagreed, alleging the justices had "changed the rules" of the election and "invented a new system for counting the election results."
"It is simply not fair ... to change the rules either in the middle of the game or after the game is played" said Baker. ''The Supreme Court has pretty well rewritten the Florida electoral code."
He made clear he was not ruling out any legal challenges. In addition, he said, "one should not be surprised if the Florida Legislature seeks to affirm the original rules."
That would place Gov. Jeb Bush - the presidential candidate's brother - in a delicate situation. Both houses of the Legislature are under Republican control, although the lawmakers are not currently scheduled to meet until next month.
In its ruling, the court rejected Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' insistence that a deadline fixed in state law prevented her from accepting amended returns after Nov. 14.
In unusually harsh language, the court said it could not allow Harris "to summarily disenfranchise innocent electors in an effort to punish dilatory (election) board members. ... The Constitution eschews punishment by proxy."
"Twenty-five years ago, this court commented that the will of the people, not a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle in election cases," the court ruled.
"We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration."
While the ruling clarified one issue - that the recounts may continue at least until Sunday, it touched on other questions without resolving them. These included the standards by which imperfectly marked ballots should be counted; the fate of more than 1,000 overseas ballots thrown out last week, and the question of how a challenge might proceed to Harris' eventual certification of a winner in the state that stands to pick the next president.
The court's decision said Harris must accept amended vote totals until Sunday at 5 p.m - if her office is open - or else Monday at 9 a.m.
The court indicated it established its timetable to give either Gore or Bush time to protest the certification of the state's 25 electors, yet still leave time for that issue to be resolved so Florida's votes can be included when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 18.
Gore attorney David Boies predicted that any appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by the Bush lawyers would fail. "It's a matter of Florida law," he said. "There is no basis to appeal this to the United States Supreme Court."
On the thorny issue of manual recounts, the court said, ''Although error cannot be completely eliminated in any tabulation of the ballots, our society has not yet gone so far as to place blind faith in machines. In almost all endeavors, including elections, humans routinely correct the errors of machines.''
The high court did not specifically address the question of whether ''dimpled'' ballots could be counted ñ those are the punchcard ballots with indentations but not full perforations ñ but cited an Illinois Supreme Court ruling that the seven justices said was ''particularly apt in this case.''
''These voters should not be disfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty,'' the Florida court wrote, quoting the Illinois ruling.
At the same time, the justices said, ''We decline to rule more expansively, for to do so would result in this court substantially rewriting the code. We leave that matter to the sound discretion of the body best equipped to address it -- the legislature.''
It was not clear whether the ruling would pave the way to reopening the issue of overseas absentee ballots that were rejected late last week for lack of postmarks. Republicans have accused Democrats in recent days of cutting off armed forces personnel, and Democrats have retreated, signaling a desire to have the issue reopened.
Tuesday night's ruling came less than 30 hours after the justices heard oral arguments in the case that holds the key to the overtime presidential election, a speedy timetable that underscored the importance of the case.
After a day of suspense, court spokesman Craig Waters appeared on the courthouse steps on a chilly evening to read a brief summation of the opinion.
Harris was not available, and Clay Roberts, the Republican-appointed director of the state Division of Elections, said he hadn't read the opinion. Still, he said, ''certainly, we will follow the orders of the Florida Supreme Court.''
''...It's really not our concern whether it's a victory for Al Gore or George Bush,'' he said.
But that's what was on almost everyone else's mind as the state's high court weighed in.
The opinion gives the Gore campaign just five days to overtake Bush's slender lead, with recounts in various stages of completion in the three counties.
Technically, the court's ruling reversed two orders issued earlier by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis authorizing Harris to certify the vote count as of seven days after the election, or Nov. 14, as she had intended.
In legal filings earlier in the day, the Bush lawyers contended the court was ''without power'' to set standards for the counting of ballots by county canvassing boards.
The issue of what rules should be applied to such things as ''dimpled ballots'' was raised in oral arguments Monday and also was addressed in the response brief to the court from Gore's lawyers. Republican Bush's legal team said it was too late, that the issue should have been raised earlier.
Bush's lawyers suggested that the court should not even address the issue of a voter's intent when punching a ballot.
In a separate case, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta is considering Bush's efforts to stop the recounts but set a timetable Tuesday that would allow some written arguments to be filed as late as Nov. 29 ñ with the counting proceeding in the meantime.
AP-WS-11-22-00 0023EST
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