Bush, Gore Camps Dig In as Manual Recount Is to Start

Still clinging to a narrow Florida lead, George W. Bush went about planning his prospective administration Friday as his campaign called on Al Gore to concede the presidential race “for the good of the country.”

But Gore continued to challenge the Florida vote, and in at least three counties, election workers prepared for the laborious process of recounting tens of thousands of ballots by hand. Some of the recounting was to start today.

Both the Bush and Gore camps seemed dug in for a prolonged stalemate, possibly lasting past Thanksgiving.

Stepping up the Bush campaign’s counterattack, the Republican Texas governor has given the go-ahead for a possible suit to block a manual recount of contested ballots, a source told Associated Press late Friday.

Bush’s representative in Florida, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said the campaign was prepared to “vigorously fight” the recount by hand because of the possibility of fraud or other mistakes.

At Bush’s request, Palm Beach County officials will perform a mechanical recount today of all ballots while conducting a separate recount by hand for Gore.

For a second consecutive day, aides to the two candidates held dueling news conferences in Tallahassee to press their cases as part of an increasingly aggressive public relations effort.

Baker sternly admonished Gore for continuing to challenge Tuesday’s election results.

“The purpose of our national election is to establish a constitutional government, not unending legal wrangling,” Baker said. “For the good of the country, and for the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end and the business of an orderly transition should begin.”

But an hour later, standing in the same Florida Senate room that Baker spoke from, Bill Daley, chairman of the Gore campaign, insisted it was premature to talk of any concession.

“Calls for a declaration of a victory before all the votes are accurately tabulated are inappropriate,” Daley said. “Waiting is unpleasant for all of us, but suggesting that the outcome of a vote is known before all the ballots are properly counted is inappropriate.”

In Tallahassee, state election officials announced that their review of a controversial Palm Beach County ballot found it in full compliance with Florida law. The Gore campaign, however, continued to question the design, which already is the subject of lawsuits filed by Gore supporters.

A tally of the recount in all of Florida’s 67 counties, conducted by Associated Press, showed Bush clinging to a 327-vote lead, out of more than 5.8 million ballots cast.

State officials said their recount gave Bush a 960-vote lead, but that did not include returns from disputed Palm Beach County, where a partial recount by hand was set to begin today. Also beginning today was a recount of all ballots in Volusia County, which includes Daytona Beach.

Broward County is to began partial hand recounts early next week. And pending before local officials in Miami-Dade County is a request by the Gore camp for a hand recount there too.

Apart from those tabulations, the tally will continue to change as officials count absentee ballots cast by Floridians living abroad. State election officials remained unsure how many there will be--in 1996, about 30,000 overseas ballots were requested but only 2,300 were returned. The deadline for those ballots to be opened is next Friday.

Nationwide, Bush has won 29 states for a total of 246 electoral votes. Oregon, with seven electoral votes, apparently tipped Friday into Gore’s column, giving him 19 states plus the District of Columbia for 262 electoral votes.

In New Mexico, which has five electoral votes, Bush was clinging to a mere four-vote lead late Friday, according to the New Mexico secretary of state.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House, leaving both candidates short without Florida’s 25 in their column.

Gore continued to lead the national popular vote by about 200,000 out of about 100 million cast.

As a number of court cases and election challenges kept Florida’s contest--and the outcome of the election--in legal and political limbo, Gore was cautioned by some within his own Democratic Party about how aggressively to proceed.

“I think that people’s patience is going to be fairly limited,” said Gov. Jim Hodges (D-S.C.).

Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) suggested that Gore was justified in pursuing the recount and taking the issue of disputed ballots to court. But he opposed a drawn-out appeal.

“In Gore’s case, his heart may say to him, ‘I won this thing,’ ” Kerrey said. “But he has to make a very difficult decision as to how far it is reasonable to take it.”

Political considerations aside, impartial analysts were struck by the large number of votes that Gore picked up in the statewide recount that began the day after the election.

“The probability of that many going for Gore is less than one in a trillion,” said Rand Wilcox, a statistician at USC. “It’s very peculiar--it’s not random. There’s something systematic going on.”

But Wilcox said that did not necessarily suggest any impropriety. “It could be an innocent thing, like the machines are doing something peculiar in a certain direction.”

Gore was at the vice presidential residence in Washington on Friday, where he played touch football with his wife, Tipper, and other family members in a scene of studied nonchalance. Asked about the election, he said, “I think we are going to win this game. We’re ahead 6-0, so I’m very optimistic.” Smiling, he added, “I’m talking about the touch football game.”

“Are you optimistic?” asked one reporter.

“I think we are going to win this game,” Gore replied.

In Austin, Texas, Bush appeared in a more sedate setting, meeting at the Governor’s Mansion with running mate Dick Cheney and several advisors and prospective members of a Bush White House.

While acknowledging questions still hang over the election, Bush told reporters, “I’m in the process of planning in a responsible way a potential administration. I think that’s what this country needs to know--that this administration will be ready to assume office and be prepared to lead.”

He demurred when asked whether Gore should concede. “I think each candidate and each team is going to have to do what they think is best, in the best interest of the country. And I think it’s in our country’s best interest that we plan, in a responsible way, a possible administration.”

The appearance by Bush, surrounded by a team of policy experts, seemed intended to convey a sense of inevitability and to build pressure on Gore to step aside.

But in Florida, there was no quick resolution in sight. It is possible that official certification of the overseas ballots may not come until Nov. 24, the legal deadline for each county to certify such absentee votes. Given the urgency, the counties are expected to certify the votes as quickly as possible. But until then, the state cannot legally declare a winner, said Ben McKay, chief of staff at the Florida Department of State.

Just to be sure, a lawyer representing the Democrats sent a letter Friday night asking state officials to delay certification until the hand count is completed.

Adding to the confusion is the flurry of lawsuits alleging a variety of voting irregularities. In Palm Beach County, a state judge will hold a hearing Tuesday on a lawsuit demanding a new election there because thousands of voters claimed they were disenfranchised by its confusing ballot.

The first hand-counting of ballots begins today in Palm Beach and Volusia counties, and it will start Monday in Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale.

In Volusia County, the recount will likely spill into Sunday because county officials decided to manually count every one of about 186,000 ballots cast.

In Palm Beach County, officials instead will hand count the results from three precincts to obtain a sample 1% of votes cast. The review of about 4,000 ballots will help them determine whether a wider count is needed.

The recount process goes like this: Election workers will run all of the ballots through computerized card readers for the third time since the election. Nearby, a three-member canvassing board will sit around a table and eyeball each ballot to ensure it has been properly counted and to consider and resolve possible glitches.

One problem in the past has been chads, the little perforated tabs that are supposed to fall from the ballots after the voter punches a stylus through the hole beside a candidate’s name. In many cases, the tab is only partially punched out, leaving what is known as a “hanging chad.”

That’s one reason that computerized counters in Palm Beach County did not detect votes for president this week on 10,582 ballots, officials said. An additional 19,120 ballots were disqualified in the county because voters punched holes for two presidential candidates. Democrats have blamed this on the ballot’s design.

In Broward County, there were nearly 6,700 ballots in which the computer counter failed to record a vote for president. The three-member Broward board ordered a hand recount of a sample of votes.

While Florida officials were focused on the mechanics of the vote, the two presidential campaigns were engaged Friday in a fight to turn public opinion to their side.

In blunt remarks delivered at a standing-room-only news conference, Baker again pointed out that the controversial Palm Beach County ballot had been approved beforehand by Democrats, and he reiterated his assertion that “no evidence of vote fraud, either in the original vote or in the recount, has been presented.”

“It appears that the Gore campaign is attempting to unduly prolong the country’s national presidential election through endless challenges to the results of the vote here in Florida,” Baker said.

Casting Gore’s actions in ominous terms, he insisted, “It is important, ladies and gentlemen, that there be some finality to the election process. . . . This may be the last chance to do that. There is no reasonable end to this process if it slips away.”

But Daley cited the “considerable narrowing” of Bush’s lead as the recounting continues and said with absentee votes still untabulated, “it seems very clear that the outcome here in Florida remains in doubt, as it will for several more days.”

Acknowledging the frustrating wait, he pressed his argument that the balloting in Palm Beach was unlawful. “As frustrating as this wait may be, what we are seeing here is a democracy in action--a careful and lawful effort to ensure that the will of the people is done,” he said.

But Daley toned down his remarks from a day earlier and added this remonstration: “I think as we move forward, it is implicit for all of us, and all of those concerned, that we carefully measure all of our words, recognizing the high stakes involved in these deliberations.”

Still, Democrats showed no signs of backing off a confrontation unlike any the country has seen in modern times.

Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said complaints about improper voting procedures continued to pour in and a team of lawyers was busy Friday gathering complaints from disgruntled voters. “We’re collecting that information,” she said. “We’re assessing it. We’re asking some people to fill out an affidavit so we have it all documented.”

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Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Michael Finnegan, Lisa Getter, Meg James, Doyle McManus and Rosie Mestel contributed to this story.