Election 2000: Gore's Last Stand
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Today could mark the beginning of the end of the battle for the White House.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Linda has details on that front. Good morning, Linda.</s>LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: David, you laugh, you've heard that before, have you? Thank you both very much. Well, many observers, including those in the Gore campaign, are calling it Gore's last battle. We what to show you live pictures of where it will all take place, the Florida Supreme Court. Things are very quiet there now, but things will heat up considerably in just a few hours; that's when attorneys for Gore will ask the justices to reverse a state judge's decision to deny any further hand counts of Florida ballots. At stake here: 14,000 under votes from heavily Democratic counties, enough to tilt the election in Al Gore's favor. In the Gore team's 50-page brief, his attorneys argue Americans must be assured Florida certified the rightful winner. They write this, quote: "This case does not involve a dispute over election technicalities or formalities. It involves the most fundamental question an election can pose: Which candidate got more votes?" But Republicans counter with this, quote: "The best exercise of this court's discretion would be to decline this appeal and bring an end to the many weeks of election discord and uncertainty." Justices in Tallahassee will listen to 30-minute arguments from both sides. They're expected to rule as early as tomorrow. Also today, the continuation of two trials involving allegations of collusion between Republicans and election officials to alter absentee ballot applications in two Florida counties. The suits were filed by Democrats in Seminole and Martin Counties. The plaintiffs in both cases accuse Republican leaders of revising thousands of absentee ballot applications, and say the ballots should be thrown out. The Martin County case adjourned about 12:30 this morning after midnight. It will reconvene at 8:00 a.m. today. The Seminole County case recessed shortly after 7:00 last night, and will be back in session at about 1:00 this afternoon. The proceedings in both cases cannot take place at the same time because many of the attorneys are actually involved in both of the lawsuits. Now, as we set that aside for a moment, regardless of what happens in any of the court cases, the Florida Legislature may hold the trump card for Governor Bush because state lawmakers meet at noon tomorrow. They will consider designating the state's 25 electors and presumably they would go for Bush. Republicans hold a wide majority in the state house. They say this special session is necessary to make sure Florida is not left out of the Electoral College. But many Democrats in the Florida Legislature accuse their Republican counterparts of abusing their power.</s>LOIS FRANKEL (D), FLORIDA HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Sadly, I have to say that I believe this is orchestrated, and the only thing missing from the proclamation today was the post mark from Austin, Texas.</s>STOUFFER: And now we go to Austin, Texas, we want to check in with CNN national correspondent Tony Clark, who's been following the Bush campaign. Also in Washington D.C., CNN's Eileen O'Connor is there with the Gore camp. But Tony, let's start with you. What's the latest from there?</s>TONY CLARK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Linda, this is obviously, as you say, a very big day for the courts. The Bush campaign going to be watching this very closely. In the Florida Supreme Court, they will argue that if the court overturns the decision by Judge Sauls, the circuit court decision, they will be going against the U.S. Supreme Court's guidance, they will be overturning the decision, and they will be reverting to a November 26th deadline day for certifying the votes, and they say that's the sort of thing that the U.S. Supreme Court put in question. Attorney Ben Ginsberg said the Bush position before the Florida Supreme Court today is clear.</s>BEN GINSBERG, BUSH CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: All the ballots in both counties were counted, not only on election night, but also in the first recount, and also in a second recount in some instances. The point is, is to now adopt a different set of rules, as the Gore campaign is asking the Florida Supreme Court to do, does change those rules. The imposition of dimple ballots, something never before used to count votes in Florida, is what the Gore campaign's asking, and that's something new and different, indeed a change in the rules.</s>CLARK: As for Gov. Bush, he is closely watching the court activities. He believes an end is near. He's planning for a new administration. He says he's got most of the positions, White House positions, he knows who he wants in those, and he's moving right along for potential Cabinet positions -- Linda.</s>STOUFFER: Tony, thank you. And as we talk more about what will happen in the Florida Supreme Court, we want to hear the other side of things. Eileen O'Connor is following what the Gore campaign is up to. Eileen, what are the saying there?</s>EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are saying that this is the final stand, advisers, legal advisers to the vice president, say that this challenge before the Florida State Supreme Court for them is it. And they do believe, though, that they will prevail. They say that Judge Sanders Sauls had actually misinterpreted some parts of the statute, in their opinion, and they do have a firm basis in both fact and law to overturn his decision. They believe that they are not changing rules, that a manual recount is actually called for under the law and that -- this former Florida State Supreme Court decision actually calls for that manual recount to occur in Miami-Dade County, and that it was stopped prematurely, they believe, and that what they would like to do is have the Florida State Supreme Court reorder that count in Miami-Dade County, and also the disputed ballots in Palm Beach County, in which they believe the standard was set too high for counting those ballots. The Gore campaign also believes that if the Florida State Supreme Court does rule in their favor then, and orders these recounts to take place, they believe that, given the right resources. this can occur and they can complete the recount by December 12th, which is the date that the collectors are to be sent up to Washington. They also, though, are opposing that Florida legislative session. They say that, let this play out in the courts, that the Florida Legislature is just trying to intervene prematurely, and there is no need for that. And that by doing so, they would be discounting the votes of some 6 million Floridians -- Linda.</s>STOUFFER: Eileen, thank you. And Tony Clark is standing by for us now too. I want to get to what both campaigns are saying about the Seminole and Martin County cases. The Democrats are making a pretty controversial charge to the ballots there. Tony, what are they saying from the Bush camp?</s>CLARK: Well, they're pleased -- the legal team is very pleased with the arguments that they were able to make in circuit court yesterday. The interesting thing, they say, though, is, in regard to the Seminole County case, well in fact both of these cases, they say that vice president has tried to distance himself from those cases, saying, well those were brought by somebody else, but then they say they can see the Gore campaign's fingerprints on them, the ties there, and they say it is hypocritical of the vice president to say over and over again he wants all the votes to count, and then try to throw out votes on what they describe as a technicality. They say that there was nothing illegal that was done there, there was no problem with the ballots themselves, it was just the request for the ballot that -- in Seminole, didn't have the right members on them -- Linda.</s>STOUFFER: Thank you, Tony. And Eileen, I'm sure the Gore camp has a response to that, those charges that Gore may be being a bit of a hypocritical here. What are they saying at that point?</s>O'CONNOR: Well, they say no, but that the -- they're not been hypocritical, that this is about not counting Democratic ballots, again, that the Democrats were at an unfair disadvantage, and that they were not allowed, or their Democratic Party operatives, like the Republican Party operatives, were allowed to fill in those voter ID numbers. In the Democratic case, they said, they weren't given that opportunity, and therefore, a lot of applications for Democrats for absentee ballots were thrown out, and so they weren't allowed to vote. And so they say, in this case, it again is about not counting ballots. It's now in this case about not counting Democratic ballots -- Linda.</s>STOUFFER: Eileen O'Connor, in Washington, Tony Clark in Austin, thank you both very much.