And the atmosphere only grew more contentious, at the recounting sites in other counties and between the candidates' campaigns. The dueling litigation is at least guaranteed to stretch the endgame into Monday, when the Florida Supreme Court will consider whether Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris must include the manual recounts in three Florida counties in her certified statewide results. Too much of this process has been manipulated and mangled by too many non-Floridians. The courts make imperfect adjudicators of elections.
Courts are slow, and different courts often reach inconsistent conclusions.
Politics permeate local government. Objectivity, while it would be handy in this mess, isn't an option. Americans, who have famously short attention spans, didn't need a winner to be able to shift gears from election season to holiday season. Many just want to be alerted when it's over. That would bring a welcome end to this stressful postelection campaign, and it should be enough to inspire Vice President Al Gore to act like a statesman and abandon the legal fight.