Scherer says the manual recount requires the county's three-member canvassing board to make subjective decisions about whether voters' intended to vote for Democratic Vice President Al Gore or Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Allowing it to continue would violate state law, he said. Democratic Party attorney Leonard Samuels said that's untrue, and that the canvassing board has standards for determining whether a vote should count. Later Friday, a second Circuit Court judge, John Miller, told the board to reconsider its decision against counting a voters' presidential selection unless two of its chad's four corners were completely detached. He said the board should consider ballots where the chads were only dimpled.
Chads are the bits of paper from the holes in punchout ballots.
County attorneys were reviewing Miller's ruling and board members would not comment. Gore had a net gain of 36 votes over Bush by late Friday evening, compared to the initial tallies reported to the state earlier this week. Officials have completed 121 of the Democratic-leaning county's 609 precincts, although Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris has said she won't accept late results, a decision supported Friday by a state Circuit Court judge. But the state Supreme Court ruled Friday that Harris cannot certify the election as final Saturday, as she had planned, until further notice from the court. You see what's happening here, they're still counting.