ALLAHASSEE - Vice President Al Gore suffered two defeats yesterday - one ambiguous and one clear-cut - but the presidential election remained on its monthlong hold. Once again, the road to the White House appears to lead through the Florida Supreme Court.
In a sweeping victory for George W. Bush, Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls rejected Gore's request for a limited manual recount in certain Florida counties. The ruling against Gore was so complete that even his lawyer, David Boies, acknowledged that the calendar was working against the vice president.
''You get closer to Dec. 12 every day,'' Boies said, referring to the date Florida is supposed to pick its representatives to the Electoral College. Still, Boies held out hope that Sauls' ruling would be overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, which last month overturned a ruling by another circuit court judge to extend the recount deadline.
''This is going to be resolved by the Florida Supreme Court,'' Boies said. I think whoever wins at the Florida Supreme Court, we'll accept that.''
Indeed, had yesterday's court case gone Gore's way, county employees might have immediately begun counting the disputed ballots by hand. Instead, the days for counting are growing short.
The Leon County Circuit Court ruling came on a historic day of decisions and overshadowed an earlier and somewhat ambiguous ruling by the US Supreme Court. Bush had asked the nation's high court to disallow the recounts conducted after Nov. 14, contending that the Florida Supreme Court improperly extended the state's initial deadline.
The US Supreme Court, while setting aside the Florida Supreme Court's decision, asked the state court whether it had properly interpreted state law or improperly rewritten it. Some legal analysts said the US Supreme Court, in sending the case back to Tallahassee, in effect provided a legal roadmap for the state court to explain its actions.
The Bush campaign, which has been stepping up the pressure on Gore to give up the fight, yesterday was elated but sought not to publicly gloat about the ruling.
''Obviously Vice President Gore needs to make his own decision as to how to proceed,'' Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said in Austin.
Eight days after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Bush as the winner in Florida by a tiny margin of 537 votes, Sauls upheld her action without any of the ambiguity that has clouded many previous court actions in the weeks since the Nov. 7 election.
''The judge has upheld everything that she did,'' said Harris's attorney, Joseph Klock.
While Democrats on Capitol Hill remained largely supportive of Gore's ongoing legal battles, the ruling was clearly a major blow to the vice president's efforts to win the White House.
''It's terrible,'' said Robert Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University law professor who has been watching the case from the Fort Lauderdale campus. ''I'm a Democrat for Al Gore, but it's over. It is a complete defeat. Judge Sauls ruled against every issue that Gore raised.''
The Gore campaign disputed such judgments, but it clearly was disappointed at failing to get a split decision from Sauls. During the two-day weekend trial, Gore's lawyers asked the judge to reconsider ballots in three counties, including more than 3,000 in Palm Beach and more than 10,000 in Miami-Dade that Gore contended did not have their presidential choices recorded by counting machines. Gore also asked to restart a recount in Nassau County.
In the most dramatic moment of the trial, Gore's lawyers had elicited an admission from one of Bush's witnesses that Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties were using outdated Votomatic punch-card machines that were prone to error. The Bush witness, John Ahmann, acknowledged that a manual recount was best when the outcome of a race was very close. Ahmann also said that he had tried unsuccessfully to get the counties to buy updated machines that would more accurately reflect actual votes.
But Sauls was unconvinced. Speaking from the bench in a measured drawl, he said, in effect, that the counties knew the machines were faulty but that it had made no proven difference to the outcome of the election.
''Although the record shows voter error and/or less than total accuracy in regard to the punch-card voting devices utilized in Dade and Palm Beach counties, which these counties have been aware of for many years, these balloting and counting problems cannot support or effect any recounting necessity with respect to Dade County, absent the establishment of a reasonable probability that the statewide election result would be different, which has not been established in this case,'' Sauls said.
Gore, in contesting the certification of Bush's victory, had to prove that there was a mechanical error with the voting machines or a malicious act by voting officials. Sauls said Gore failed to prove those claims.
''The evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes,'' Sauls said.
Gore aides said the case now rests squarely with the Florida Supreme Court. Some insisted publicly that the Sauls ruling did not change the long-predicted flow of events.
''Everyone expected this case to be back before the Florida Supreme Court and that is exactly where we are headed,'' Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said. ''This is just another predictable part of the process. Of course we want every decision to go our way.'' Hattaway, seeking to put the best light on the ruling, said Sauls left a ''major opening'' for Gore's appeal.
''The judge never looked at the ballots,'' Hattaway said, noting that Sauls had ordered the ballots to be brought by truck to Tallahassee. ''In a contest you present the ballots as evidence and we asked the court to review those ballots.''
For now, the ballots remain under lock and key in the courthouse. At a news conference after the ruling, Boies called the ballots ''the best evidence'' that the outcome of the election might change with a recount. He also stressed that Gore's court case was not a request for a recount; it was a contest of an election.
''I don't think anyone can say the outcome of the election has not been placed in doubt,'' Boies said. ''This is the first case I'm aware of in a ballot contest that the court has refused to look at any of the ballots.''
For their part, Bush's lawyers applauded the judge's wisdom, saying he had made the right ruling on the evidence presented. Gore had put just two witnesses on the stand, taking testimony from a statistician and an election data specialist.
The Bush team put on a voter who said she had turned around and driven away from the polls in Tallahassee after she wrongly heard they were closed and others from counties not involved in the court case who said a limited recount was unfair because they had no way of knowing for sure that their own ballots were counted.
Sauls, in his ruling, said fairness would mandate a statewide recount or none at all. Sauls also warned that further delays could rob the state of its representatives to the Electoral College. ''This legal jeopardy could potentially lead Florida to having all of its votes, in effect, disqualified, and this state being barred from the Electoral College's selection of a president,'' Sauls said.
The Florida Legislature, dominated by Republicans, has threatened to pick its own 25 electors for Bush if the case is unresolved.
While the focus yesterday was on Gore's contest of the outcome in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau counties, some political observers said the vice president's best chance for victory rests with an election-related Seminole County court case that the campaign is not formally involved in.
That case could see 15,000 absentee ballots - most of them from Republicans who voted for Bush - thrown out and give Gore a cushion of several thousand votes.
In that case, Harry Jacobs, a wealthy personal injury lawyer and Democratic activist, has charged that the local supervisor of elections committed fraud when she allowed Republican employees to complete absentee ballot applications for party members. A printing error had left off the voter identification numbers. Local party leaders said they did nothing wrong by using their own computers and purchasing voter registration lists to fill them in.
A similar case is being heard in Martin County.
