Gore Looks To Fla. Judge, Justices

With the calendar closing in, the recount Al Gore believes would reverse George W. Bush's minuscule margin in Florida and send him to the White House instead is up to a folksy but firm Tallahassee

Monday, December 4th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

With the calendar closing in, the recount Al Gore believes would reverse George W. Bush's minuscule margin in Florida and send him to the White House instead is up to a folksy but firm Tallahassee judge, with an appeal certain whatever his verdict.

In the marbled splendor of the U.S. Supreme Court, a decision is pending on Bush's appeal against the recount extension that delayed but did not stop his certification as the Florida winner by 537 votes, the fragment that would make him the 43rd president.

Should that be the outcome, Gore said, and should it be Bush, not he, who is inaugurated on Jan. 20, ``he will be sworn in as my president, too.''

But that will be only ``at the end of the day, when all processes have taken place,'' Gore said in an interview on CBS' ''60 Minutes'' Sunday night.

As that was broadcast, one of the processes was unfolding in closing arguments on the new recount case, to Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls.

``Whatever happens, both sides know this is going to end up in the Florida Supreme Court,'' Gore said. ``It's not a recount. We want a first count.''

But it would be a recount, by hand, of ballots already tallied by machine in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. That would cover about 14,000 disputed ballots.

Republicans contend that Florida already has had a count and two recounts, and that the Bush win certified by the GOP secretary of state should stand. Katherine Harris announced that certification on Nov. 26, the deadline set by the Florida Supreme Court when it ruled for Gore on an earlier appeal and extended the deadline to permit more time for recounting before the official figures were sent to the secretary of state.

The Bush side appealed that to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Florida court violated federal law and the Constitution by changing the certification deadline set by the state legislature.

That case was argued before the court on Friday, and while the justices do not say when it will decide a case, a ruling on this one is expected soon, with Electoral College deadlines approaching.

Either way, the Supreme Court decision would not undo Bush's lead in Florida. A ruling for Bush would put his margin back at the 930-vote edge he had on the original certification date, a week after the election. Otherwise, he'd be at the 537 margin, subject to the state court rulings on Gore's recount case in the contest phase of his legal offensive.

``If they don't decide the case at all, George Bush, of course, has been certified the winner in Florida,'' Theodore Olson, who argued the appeal for him, said Sunday.

In Tallahassee, teams of attorneys for Gore and for Bush dueled for 13 hours Sunday in Sauls' crowded, low-ceilinged courtroom, the judge rocking in his high-backed leather chair, peering over his eyeglasses at a daylong succession of witnesses.

Dexter Douglass, a lead lawyer for Gore, twice tried to persuade Sauls to let the hand recounts begin and then decide whether they should count.

Douglass said with the approaching deadlines, even another day or two would make Gore's ``remedy'' â€” legalese for the new counts he thinks would make him the winner â€” useless for lack of time to conduct them.

Sauls said no.

Florida's 25 electoral votes are the balance that will determine who wins a presidential contest still in dispute nearly four weeks after the Nov. 7 election that gave Gore a 337,576 lead in the popular vote.

Presidents are chosen by electoral votes, and the states official select their elector slates on Dec. 12, the first deadline that worries the Gore camp. The Electoral College casts its votes â€” 270 are needed to win â€” on Dec. 18, in the state capitols. The outcome will be reported to the new Congress by Jan. 6.

Another case awaits trial beginning Wednesday in Seminole County. There, Democrats have challenged absentee ballots on grounds that Republicans were improperly allowed to fill in missing data on application envelopes. There are more than enough votes at issue to erase Bush's lead.

On yet another front, the Republicans who control the Florida House were acting to summon a special session of the legislature to choose a slate of Bush electors should court challenges threaten the state's ability to cast its electoral votes on Dec. 18. The state Senate, also GOP-run, is moving more slowly.

``I can't imagine that they would do that,'' Gore said of intervention by the legislature.

``We're not trying to steal any election,'' state House Speaker Tom Feeney said on NBC. ``We are trying to preserve the election as it was conducted under the law that existed before the Florida Supreme Court changed it.''

Another controversy: Jesse Jackson, in Tallahassee, claimed there was ``a clear pattern of voter suppression'' of blacks in Florida. The NAACP said it will sue.

The Justice Department is gathering information on such complaints, with two people in Florida ``to see what, if any, federal investigation is warranted,'' said spokeswoman Kara Peterman. And the U.S. Civil Rights Commission said it will examine those allegations at a meeting Friday.

While the lawyers argued in court, the politicians debated on television, in a procession of Republicans versus Democrats on the Sunday interview shows.

Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney said on NBC that Gore should quit now. ``I think I understand, all of us understand, how difficult this is for him,'' Cheney said.

``I think that history would regard him in a better light if he were to bring this to a close.''

Gore went to church on Sunday and heard a sermon on ``A Time for Waiting.'' Bush was at his isolated ranch near Crawford, Texas.