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Florida Supreme Court shrinks Bush's lead, orders statewide recount of undercount

Chief Justice Wells questions attorneys during Thursday's hearing

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- The Florida Supreme Court gave Vice President Al Gore a major victory and election officials a major headache Friday by ordering a statewide manual recount.

The court, in a 4-3 ruling, reversed a lower court ruling in Al Gore's contest of the presidential election and ordered a manual recount of the undervote, or ballots that were not counted by voting machines, "in any Florida county where such a recount has not yet occurred."

The Gore legal team had only asked the court to order a hand recount of about 14,000 disputed ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

COURT OPINION Florida Supreme Court opinion ordering recount

VIDEO Florida Supreme Court reverses decision in Gore contest; orders manual recount (December 8) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Watch Florida Supreme Court hearing on Gore's appeal of a ruling against a hand recount of disputed ballots (December 7) Select Video Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

TRANSCRIPT • Law Professor Richard Friedman looks at long-term impact of Florida election battle • CNN's Susan Candiotti offers insight to Florida Supreme Court ruling  DOCUMENTS • Clarification of Argument for Appellees Bush and Cheney (FindLaw) • Motion of Appellees Bush and Cheney for Leave to File Clarification of Argument(FindLaw) • Gore brief in Florida Supreme Court contest appeal • Bush brief in Florida Supreme Court contest appeal • Transcript of Judge N. Sanders Sauls' ruling rejecting Gore's contest (FindLaw) • View more documents filed in Gore v. Harris (requires Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™)

Those ballots have already been moved to Tallahassee, but at least another 29,000 undervotes will have to be counted in Florida's other 65 counties.

In a statement read by court spokesman Craig Waters, the justices said, "In tabulating what constitutes a legal vote, the standard to be used is the one provided by the legislature, 'a vote shall be counted where there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter.'"

The court also added 215 votes from Palm Beach County's manual recount along with 168 from the partial count in Miami-Dade County. That shrinks Texas Gov. George W. Bush's lead from 537 votes to 154.

Gore's lead attorney, David Boies, had said that Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls' was wrong to uphold the certification of Florida's election result without looking at the thousands of disputed ballots.

Bush attorneys Barry Richard argued that the Gore campaign had not met the burden of proof needed to overturn the certified election results.

One of the big issues the court addressed in Thursday's oral arguments was time. The attorneys were asked several times whether the ballots could be counted in time to meet the December 12 deadline for appointing electors to the Electoral College.

The Florida Legislature has scheduled a special session for next week in case it needs to appoint the electors on its own.

CNN Correspondent Kate Snow reported that Gore's legal team erupted in cheers when it heard the televised announcement. The vice president called them on the phone almost immediately, congratulated them and said, "Let's get counting."

Before the opinion was issued, Bush suggested he would appeal an adverse ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Palm Beach County government

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