_____ Full Text _____ • Fla. Supreme Court Order • 11th Circuit's Ruling (pdf) • Vice President Gore's Statement _____Florida Recount_____ • Video Reports, Transcripts and More • Shifting Tallies • The Palm Beach County Ballot • Hand Count in Four Counties? • Voting in Florida Election 2000 Coverage ___ Election Results ___ • White House • Senate • Governors • House • States: MD | DC | VA | Others ___ Special Features ___ • Live Online: Daily Discussions on the Election and Transition • Post Video/Images: Reports From Austin, Nashville and the Campaigns • Media Notes: Campaign Coverage • Campaign Insider: Daily Reports • Poll Watchers: The Numbers • Party Line: Behind the Scenes • Net Election: Online Campaigning • Political Junkie: Ken Rudin • Rough Draft: Achenbach Satire ___ What's Next? ___ • The Transition • The Talent Gap • Regulations • Personalities • The Court Election Day is just the beginning. Keep up with Al Kamen's In the Loop, Steve Barr's Federal Diary and news from The Post's Federal Page.

Charles Babington and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 17, 2000; 7:41 p.m.

Florida's Supreme Court today barred officials from certifying the state's presidential election results any time soon, a move that brightened Vice President Gore's hopes of gaining enough newfound votes to overtake Gov. George W. Bush.

The ruling soon was followed by two other setbacks for Bush. The Atlanta-based federal appeals court declined to stop Florida counties from manually recounting presidential ballots. And Miami-Dade, Florida's biggest county, decided to join two other South Florida counties in conducting such manual recounts.

Gore hopes these hand recounts will detect enough new votes, which machines had overlooked, to carry him to victory.

The Florida Supreme Court's surprise injunction was announced shortly after 4 p.m., less than eight hours before Florida's midnight deadline for accepting absentee ballots from overseas. Florida officials were poised to declare Bush the winner at midday Saturday, but the court's order bars them from doing that.

The Supreme Court, whose seven members were appointed by Democratic governors, scheduled a 2 p.m. Monday hearing on the issue. Presumably, they will address the crucial question of whether Florida must certify the manual recount results.

Meantime, Broward and Palm Beach counties continued their manual recounts of votes that were cast on Nov. 7.

At 4:40 p.m., Gore hailed the state Supreme Court's injunction as "very important." In a brief statement outside his Washington residence, Gore said: "Neither Governor Bush nor the Florida secretary of state nor I will be the arbiter of this election. This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people, as expressed under the rule of law."

Until the late-afternoon Supreme Court ruling came, Bush was having a good day in Florida. A state circuit court had ruled that Florida officials could reject new vote tallies stemming from the manual recounts. Gore's lawyers immediately appealed to the high court, which soon issued its injunction and scheduled Monday's hearing.

By late afternoon, Bush's lead stood at 449 votes, reflecting gains from overseas absentee ballots that some counties began counting today. But at the same time, Broward and Palm Beach county officials said Gore was picking up a few dozen net votes from their manual recounts. But only a court order will result in those newfound votes - and any that come later - being certified.

That's because Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry P. Lewis this morning upheld Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's decision to refuse amended vote totals that a few counties may try to submit in coming days. Harris, a Republican and prominent Bush supporter, had planned to declare the election over by midday Saturday.

The Supreme Court's injunction surprised many lawyers because Gore's team had not requested it. Before it was announced, the Gore lawyers had warned Republicans against "premature partying." Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes declined to say whether the Texas governor had planned to declare himself president-elect on Saturday and begin working on transition matters.

"It's premature at this time to discuss any of that," Hughes told reporters at 2:40 p.m. Two hours later, the Supreme Court proved her right.

The Supreme Court ruling appears likely keep the Broward and Palm Beach recounts -- and the newly launched Miami-Dade recount -- from losing momentum, at least for a few days. In Broward, Republican lawyers today unsuccessfully tried to stop the manual recount, saying Lewis's ruling made it pointless.

At about 6 p.m., the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta, rejected a request from Florida Republican voters for an injunction to halt Florida's manual recounts. The ruling said the Constitution and federal laws "indicate that states have the primary authority to determine the manner of appointing Presidential Electors and to resolve most controversies concerning the appointment of Electors. . . . The State of Florida has enacted detailed election dispute procedures. These procedures have been invoked," and therefore a federal court's intervention isn't warranted.

Former Secretary of State James Baker, representing Bush in Florida, said he was disappointed by the ruling. But he said Bush's team still can ask federal courts to rule that Florida's recount process is unconstitutional because it differs substantially from county to county.

At mid-afternoon, when things looked grimmer for Gore, his attorneys Warren Christopher and David Boies faced reporters in Tallahassee. Boies said the Democrats' appeal of Lewis's ruling would argue that Florida cannot legally certify the election results so long as counties are still recounting ballots that possibly could "change, or place in doubt, the results" that Harris intended to certify on Saturday.

Lewis's brief ruling this morning said: "It appears that the secretary [Harris] has exercised her reasoned judgment to determine what relevant factors and criteria should be considered . . . My order requires nothing more."

Earlier this week Lewis had ruled that Harris could not "arbitrarily" reject amended vote tallies. Today he said she met that requirement.

Meanwhile today, the New York Times reported that ballot confusion in Duvall County contributed to 26,000 ballots being invalidated, many in precincts that voted heavily for Gore. Most of the invalid ballots contained votes for two presidential candidates. Democratic Party workers acknowledged that they told many African Americans (some of them first-time voters) to vote for Gore and be sure to cast votes on "every page" of the ballot. But presidential nominees were listed on two pages.

Many confused voters punched the hole next to Gore's name, then also punched a hole next to a third-party nominee's name on the second page, rendering their ballots invalid. The Times said about 9,000 such ballots were invalidated in heavily black precincts around Jacksonville, where Gore won big margins from the valid votes cast.

To date, most talk of confusing ballots has focused on Palm Beach County. Gore allies contend that a confusing ballot in Palm Beach and ineffective vote-counting machinery caused the vice president to lose votes rightfully his. They say so many ballots were spoiled, or simply uncounted, that a failure to conduct a hand recount could cost him the election.

Harris, in her denial of deadline extensions, cited slices of state Supreme Court decisions to support her position. She said valid reasons for an extension include voter fraud, acts of nature or mechanical malfunction-or enough "noncompliance" with election laws to leave doubts that the voters have expressed their will.

Situations not warranting a deadline waiver, Harris said in quoting precedents, might include a case where a good-faith effort to run a fair election may have been marred by "voter confusion." Or a case where there is "nothing more than a mere possibility that the outcome of the election would have been affected."

But Gore lawyers say it makes no sense for the state Supreme Court to allow the manual recounts to continue -- as it did Thursday -- and then refuse to have them certified.

"I think it's very unlikely," Boies said Thursday, "that the Florida Supreme Court would have directed that these recounts go forward if all that meant was to preserve the votes for history."

Babington reported from Washington, Slevin from Tallahassee.