During spirited oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday, several justices seemed troubled by whether and how they could satisfy Gore's request for a recount of certain disputed ballots. Signaling the rough grilling to come for the Gore team, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Wells began Thursday's hearing by questioning whether the case belonged in his court at all. The court said that merely the fact that not counting the votes placed the election in doubt should have been considered. Thus, a threshold contest showing that the result of an election has been placed in doubt, warranting a manual count of all undervotes or 'no vote registered' ballots, has been made. I have to conclude that there is real and present likelihood that this constitutional crisis will do substantial damage to our country, our state, and to this court as an institution.
Judges refuse to throw out absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin counties.
Although Gore was not a party to either absentee ballot case, positive rulings for the Democratic voters could have depleted Bush's lead. Democratic lawyers said they would immediately appeal the rulings. But the judges clearly rejected the plaintiffs' suggestion that all absentee ballots should be tossed out. In other words, the judges refused to exclude all absentee ballots because of what amounted to a technical violation of the election laws. It has further ordered that the circuit court of the 2nd Judicial Circuit here in Tallahassee shall immediate begin a manual recount of the approximately 9,000 Miami-Dade ballots that registered undervotes.