Courtroom machinations proceed unabated in Florida
Public relations takes back seat to legal wrangling
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Boxes of Miami-Dade County ballots are unloaded from rental trucks and logged at the Leon County Courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, Friday
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- While most attention in the ongoing presidential election drama focused Friday on the Supreme Court's proceedings in Washington, courtroom conflagrations continued to flare up across Florida as Al Gore and George W. Bush maneuvered to secure the state's 25 electoral votes.
Bush's legal team launched a fierce offensive in Tallahassee on Friday that consisted of multi-pronged attacks aimed at blocking a hand count of 14,000 ballots from localities with pronounced Democratic leanings.
The Republicans secured a victory late Friday afternoon when the Florida Supreme Court rejected an earlier request by the Gore campaign to immediately begin the hand count of 14,000 disputed presidential ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. The question of whether to order a hand count at all is now before Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who has scheduled a 12-hour trial opening Saturday to consider the issue.
In another Florida Supreme Court development, the Sunshine State's highest legal body opted Friday not to throw out election returns in Palm Beach County. Litigants from Palm Beach, angered over the design of the county's so-called butterfly election ballot, had asked the justices to throw out the county results because, they argued, the ballot was confusing.
A number of Democrats in Palm Beach County came forward in the days following the November 7 general election to complain about the ballot design. They argued the ballot led some people to vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan rather than Gore, their presidential choice.
In a unanimous decision, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday afternoon that the ballot design did not warrant a dismissal of the county's results, and the court's justices refused to schedule a revote in Palm Beach.
Also on Friday: the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed to
hear oral arguments in two Bush campaign appeals that argue hand recounts of
presidential ballots in Florida are unconstitutional. Both cases will be
heard Tuesday morning.
Sauls joins drama's cast
Opening its latest barrage against the Gore camp, the Bush campaign answered Gore's challenge of Florida's certified election returns late Thursday by asking Sauls to dismiss the challenge on multiple counts. In addition, Bush's legal team said it would subpoena nearly 1.2 million additional ballots from three Florida counties -- a move codified by Sauls in a Friday afternoon pre-trial procedural hearing.
The Bush campaign argued that Gore cannot mount a challenge in Florida because he and running mate Joe Lieberman were never on the ballot: Technically, only the party's electors appeared on the ballot.
The response also says Gore has failed to show that the outcome of the election -- certified for Bush by a margin of 537 votes -- would be changed if the 14,000 votes he wants hand-counted are tallied.
If the court allows the votes to be hand-counted, Bush's lawyers argued, it must recount every ballot or additional ballots chosen by the Bush campaign. But they also argue that the manual recounting of ballots is illegal.
Lawyers for Bush argued Friday morning before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Florida Supreme Court acted illegally when it extended the deadline for certification of the state's votes to allow for the inclusion of manually recounted ballots in the final tally. The Gore campaign countered that the Florida Supreme Court's actions are a state matter and the justices should not get involved.
Arguments from both sides began took 90 minutes. The process was completed by 11:30 a.m. EST.
The court action played out as Miami-Dade County elections officials sent 654,000 ballots to Tallahassee in a convoy of trucks and police escort vehicles.
The rental trucks, bearing 82 boxes of ballots and one voting machine, pulled into a court garage at 2:46 p.m. EST, some eight-and-a-half hours after leaving Miami.
Palm Beach County sent 462,000 ballots to Tallahassee on Thursday to meet a circuit court imposed arrival deadline of 5 p.m. EST Friday. The ballots from both counties are being stored in the vault of the clerk of court until Sauls decides whether to grant the Democratic request that they be counted by hand.
The Gore campaign wants Sauls to rule Saturday that the hand count of the 14,000 ballots can go forward. They say that count should be completed before a Dec. 12 deadline when Florida's 25 electors must be chosen.
In what the Bush attorneys were calling an "affirmative defense motion," Judge Sauls was told that the Bush campaign wanted 588,000 ballots from Broward County, 407,000 ballots from Pinellas County and 184,000 ballots from Volusia County brought to Tallahassee.
In response, Sauls subpoenaed those ballots Friday afternoon: He also subpoenaed ballots from Nassau County, per a request made by the Gore campaign.
The Bush campaign says some of their requested ballots are illegally counted "chads" which should not have been counted as legal votes.
Both sides watch for new fires
Lawyers and lawmakers stayed busy in Tallahassee as events unfolded in Washington.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Florida House and Senate were expected to sign a proclamation calling a special session so the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature could name the state's 25 presidential electors.
Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay, both Republicans, were expected to sign the proclamation after a legislative committee voted 8-5 along party lines to recommend a special session. Sources said that session would likely begin Tuesday.
But McKay said Friday he wanted to take the weekend to pour over a number of documents before he signs anything. The state Senate president said he wanted to consider a number of legal factors, including how the U.S. Supreme Court might choose to rule on arguments presented by lawyers for Bush and Gore on Friday.
Feeney also pulled back Friday, saying both chambers would have to reach agreement. "As soon as the Florida House and Florida Senate work out the language
and schedule, I am prepared to sign a proclamation for a special session to
preserve the election results," Feeney said.
State Republicans said they need to act because the outcome of the election remains uncertain, putting Florida's 25 votes in the Electoral College in jeopardy. Democrats denounced Thursday's move to authorize a special session as a power grab by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to give the state and the election to his brother.
Sparks in other Florida counties threatened to ignite Friday.
A group of voters from Martin County filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to throw out all absentee ballots in the county. Ronald Taylor, described as a resident and voter, along with two unnamed voters, were plaintiffs in the suit filed against the Martin County Canvassing Board, the Florida Republican party, Secretary of State Katherine Harris and others.
The suit accuses Republican officials of tampering with hundreds of absentee ballot request forms. GOP officials deny any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit says Republican party officials were given "unfettered and unsupervised access" to the absentee ballots, and were allowed to insert, illegally, missing voter identification numbers and other data. It seeks an immediate hearing on the matter with Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis.
The lawsuit is similar to one filed in Seminole County. A hearing on that matter is scheduled for Wednesday.
CNN's Mark Potter, Ian Christopher McCaleb and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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