Rulings Narrow Gore’s Options

The nation’s four-week election impasse moved closer to resolution and a George W. Bush presidency after a judge Monday flatly rejected Al Gore’s bid to overturn Florida’s certified results.

Reading dispassionately from the bench in a near monotone, Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls unequivocally denied the vice president’s request for a hand recount of roughly 14,000 disputed ballots. He also upheld the actions of election officials during earlier recounts in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau counties.

Sauls said there was no “credible statistical evidence” that further recounting would produce a result different from the one certified Nov. 26 by Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

In addition, Sauls said, there was no evidence of any “illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes.”

The verdict came just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling by Florida’s highest court that allowed hand recounting of votes for 12 days after the state’s normal election cutoff date of Nov. 14. The justices sent the case back to Florida seeking further clarification of the court’s reasoning.

Even before Sauls finished reading his verdict, a lawyer for the vice president left the courtroom to file an appeal.

“We have always said we will accept the rule of law,” David Boies, the lead attorney for Gore, said immediately after the decision. He then described Florida’s high court as the ultimate arbiter, saying Gore would end his appeals at that stage.

But a buoyant Bush team declared the legal fight essentially over and suggested that any further appeals were a mere formality. “The fact is that Gov. Bush and [running mate Dick] Cheney have won Florida,” said Ben Ginsberg, a Bush attorney.

As a result of Monday’s twin court rulings, plans for a special legislative session in Florida to give Bush the state’s 25 electoral votes were placed on hold, as GOP lawmakers assessed the impact of the court decisions.

The rulings were a grave setback for Gore.

Publicly, leading Democrats continued to profess their support for their nominee, at least until the Florida Supreme Court has a chance to review Sauls’ decision.

“We are united in our support of the decision to appeal,” House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said in a joint statement with his Senate counterpart, Tom Daschle of South Dakota. “While the courts go about their important work, we remain committed to a full, fair and accurate count in Florida.”

Gore has always rested his hopes on the Florida Supreme Court, where six of the seven members were appointed by Democratic governors.

But even loyalists acknowledged that the prospects for a Gore victory had dwindled from slim to virtually nonexistent. “It’s an uphill challenge,” said Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.). “The chances on a scale of 1 to 10 have significantly diminished.”

Privately, many Democrats were even more blunt, using words like “hopeless” and “devastating” after Sauls’ decision.

“I think we’re at the witching hour now,” said one Democratic strategist and past advisor to the Gore campaign who asked not to be identified. “I felt all along it was over once certification happened. I feel that even more strongly now.”

Gore, who was at the vice presidential residence in Washington when Sauls’ ruling was announced, made no public comment.

But within the Gore camp there was a strong sense that, until the Florida Supreme Court resolves all outstanding issues, there is no point in discussing whether Gore might concede.

Still pending are two lawsuits in which Democrats seek to nullify close to 25,000 absentee votes because of alleged improprieties in Republican-leaning Seminole and Martin counties. Although Gore is not an official party to either suit, he could gain thousands of votes if judges agree to disqualify the ballots. Trials in those cases are set to begin Wednesday in Tallahassee.

Bush also had no comment on Sauls’ ruling, though earlier in the day he hailed the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“We were pleased and I think America ought to be comforted to know that the Supreme Court is going to make sure that the outcome of this election is fair,” Bush said during a photo session at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, Texas, where he sat with Colorado Gov. Bill Owens before a backdrop of holiday decorations.

Asked if it was time for Gore to concede, Bush replied: “The vice president is going to have to make the decision that he thinks is necessary. And I know that . . . the interests of the country will be important in any decision-making, just like it would be in mine.”

A short time later, after Sauls delivered his verdict on national television, Bush left it to spokeswoman Karen Hughes to offer his reaction. She described Bush as “very pleased with the Florida court’s thoughtful and comprehensive decision.”

“In other words, the court reviewed all the facts, listened to all the arguments, considered all the evidence and concluded that Florida’s votes were cast and counted fairly and properly,” Hughes said.

Gore filed suit Nov. 27, challenging the certification of the tally that showed Bush winning Florida by 537 votes out of roughly 6 million cast.

He alleged that roughly 14,000 votes cast in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties were either overlooked or improperly tallied. Separately, Gore questioned the conduct of a machine recount of ballots in Nassau County.

The suit asked Sauls to overturn certification of the official results and order a swift recount of all contested ballots.

Addressing Gore’s complaints point by point, the judge said the canvassing board in Miami-Dade County “did not abuse its discretion” in shutting down its hand recount without inspecting 10,000 ballots that failed to register a presidential preference on counting machines.

In Palm Beach County, Sauls ruled that the election board there “properly exercised its discretion” in deciding which of more than 3,000 imperfectly punched ballots to tabulate and which to set aside.

And he said a decision by Nassau County to certify its first count, rather than a machine recount that failed to pick up 218 ballots, was not “illegal and was done within the proper exercise of its discretion.”

The Gore team had hoped the judge would force the county to use the second Nassau County count in reporting its results, which would have given Gore 51 more votes.

Within minutes, Gore’s attorneys had filed their appeal, urging the Florida Supreme Court to “immediately and finally resolve” the weeks of legal haggling.

“The issues presented are matters of national importance,” Gore attorneys argued. “Time is extraordinarily short because of the schedule imposed by federal law.”

Indeed, the Gore team has kept an anxious eye on the clock throughout the legal proceedings, mindful of the Dec. 12 cutoff for states to seat their delegates to the electoral college.

Without Florida’s 25 electoral votes, neither candidate has the 270 votes needed to win the White House.

With Monday’s twin decisions, the Florida Supreme Court once more becomes the focal point of the fight for the presidency.

Craig Waters, a spokesman for the chief justice, said legal briefs from both sides are due by 3 p.m. today on the clarification matter requested by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The federal court asked the Florida justices to clarify their decision to extend the state deadline for certification of election results by 12 days. In that time, a hand count of thousands of ballots trimmed Bush’s official lead from 930 votes to 537.

Moving on a separate front, state GOP lawmakers Monday slowed down their steps toward a special session to award the state’s 25 electoral votes to Bush. The action would be a way of ensuring Bush’s election, even if Gore wins in court.

The decision is up to House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay, who are authorized to summon Florida’s 160 state lawmakers to the capital by joint consent. Feeney, however, has been far more willing to do that than the more cautious McKay.

If Bush seems destined to prevail, which appeared more likely after Sauls’ ruling, some legislative insiders argued that the special session may not be necessary.

Even before Monday’s court decisions, there were worrisome signs for Gore that the public’s patience was waning. Fully 65% of those surveyed Sunday night in an ABC News-Washington Post poll disapproved of Gore’s handling of the postelection situation.

Of those surveyed, 57% called on Gore to immediately concede--despite the fact that nearly half, 47%, said they had little or no confidence that the Florida vote had been counted accurately.

“From here on, everything has to go right for us,” said one Democratic strategist, summing up the dispirited mood among some party loyalists. “Since everything hasn’t to date, it’s hard to imagine it will.”

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Times Staff Writers Edwin Chen, James Gerstenzang, Jeffrey Gettleman, Scott Gold and Janet Hook contributed to this story.

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Day 27: A Summary

Developments Monday in the contested presidential election recount:

COURTS

In Tallahassee, Fla., Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls rejected Democrat Al Gore’s request for a manual recount of thousands of contested ballots and refused the vice president’s request to overturn George W. Bush’s certified statewide victory. The state Supreme Court will hear Gore’s appeal.

In Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed the presidential hand recount case back to the Florida Supreme Court, saying the state court’s reasoning in extending a deadline for counting votes was unclear.

A federal judge in Pensacola, Fla., will hear arguments today in a Republican effort to pad Bush’s slim lead with a few more overseas ballots, mostly from military voters.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta will hear oral arguments today in two separate but related Republican cases aimed at throwing out election results that include hand recounts.

LEGISLATURE

Lawmakers in Florida took no action on a proposed special session to select presidential electors to ensure Bush’s victory in the state.

TWO TRANSITIONS

Gore spent most of the day at his home in Washington. With the legal fight entering its fourth week, his campaign has begun a new fund-raising effort.

Bush returned to Austin, Texas, from his ranch in Crawford. He said in a news conference at the Governor’s Mansion that he was pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

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Source: Associated Press, Times staff Los Angeles Times

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What’s Next in Florida

The state Supreme Court will take up Gore’s appeal of a judge’s refusal to order more manual recounts.

At the order of the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida’s justices will consider explaining their ruling allowing hand recounts.

Judges could disqualify thousands of absentee ballots from Seminole and Martin counties that could favor Bush.