Election 2000: Broward County Officials Hope to Complete Manual Tally by Day's End; Judge Denies Revote in Palm Beach County
FRANK SESNO, CNN ANCHOR: Back now to our extensive coverage from Florida itself. In Broward County, the Fort Lauderdale area, officials hope they will be able to complete their manual tally of the 609 precincts by the end of this day. CNN's Susan Candiotti is following developments there -- Susan.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Frank, and you know, with those oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court set to begin about 2:00, I have word that the three-member canvassing board here might take a briefly recess to watch some of that hearing because, of course, they have a vested interest in it, primarily, to find out whether indeed the standard they are using to now consider dimpled ballots or those with one hanging chad to try to determine the voter's intent from those, that is going to be debated before the Florida Supreme Court. But there is no break for these people here working behind me. They've been at it for several hours now, and here's the latest update on that: 461 of 609 precincts have been completed with a net gain of 108 votes for Vice President Gore. Now, when all those precincts are completed, again the work is not done, because all of those so-called dimpled ballots have been segregated from the rest, and the canvassing board must still review those. There are estimated to be several hundred of them, with an attorney for the board saying, however, that he thought maybe only 100 of them might give the board -- might require some extra time for them to consider. So they're sticking by that goal of completing at least the 609 precinct by day's end. Frank, back to you.</s>SESNO: Susan Candiotti thanks. Next stop, Palm Beach County, up the coast from Broward. That is where the hand count resumed this morning. Democrats, who have gone to court seeking a revote in the county, as we mentioned earlier, lost that one a couple of hours ago. CNN's Mark Potter joins us now from West Palm with more -- Mark.</s>MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Frank, Indeed, at the courthouse behind me here in Palm Beach, Judge Jorge LaBarga issued a written ruling saying that he does not have the power to order a new countywide presidential election. He had been asked to do by a number of voters here in Palm Beach County who filed lawsuit, saying that they lost their vote because of confusion over the ballot, a confusion that they say cost Al Gore as many as 14,000 votes. Now the judge said he sympathizes with these voters, he fully understands the sanctity of the ballot, but says he just, under law, does not have the power to order a new presidential election, only Congress, he says, can do that. A few counties north of us, in Seminole County, another judge there, Deborah Nelson, denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit in that county. That lawsuit asked that thousands of absentee ballots filed primarily by Republicans be thrown out because of alleged problems, violations of election laws. Those violations supposedly occurred in the election supervisor's office. Now Republicans strenuously deny any wrongdoing. They asked that that lawsuit be dismissed. But the judge has kept that case alive. And the evidence will now be heard a week from today, November 27th, in Sanford, Florida. Frank, back to you.</s>SESNO: Mark Potter, thanks a lot.