LANTATION, Fla. - Republicans called it yet another example of ''shifting standards''; Democrats believe it's the best way to reach the most complete and accurate tally.
The Broward County Elections Canvassing Board yesterday reversed an earlier decision to reject ballots with ''dimpled'' or not sufficiently punched chads. The board had been disqualifying votes on which the chads, the tiny pieces of paper in a punch-card ballot, did not have at least two corners detached.
Still, the rules could change again, and all the counting might be put to an end. Florida's Supreme Court will hear arguments today on whether the results from ongoing hand recounts can be included in the state's final tally. The judges may also make the final call on what constitutes a valid vote.
Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore have already won rulings in circuit court that bar election officials from categorically excluding a ballot. Judges have ruled that officials in Palm Beach and Broward must examine all the ballots to determine ''voter intent,'' a finding that may extend to ballots in which the chads had been depressed but not perforated.
The Broward County decision to consider all ballots came after another court victory on Friday for Democrats. Circuit Court Judge John Miller said at a hearing in Fort Lauderdale that the canvassing board risked disenfranchising voters if it invalidated ballots with marked but undetached chads. ''If I find that the board isn't counting the pregnant chads and all this other stuff that is supposed to show the totality of the ballot and show the intent of the voter, then I will tell them to do it again,'' he warned.
Republicans accused the members of the local canvassing board, two Democrats and a Republican, of bowing to political pressure. ''The Gore campaign now wants to lower the bar because it needs more votes,'' said Ed Pozzuoli, chairman of the county's Republican Party.
Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Palm Beach Gardens, said the decision reflected the chaos of the process. ''It's just one more subjective standard,'' he said. ''When is it going to stop?''
Despite allegations that Democrats were eating chads and other inflammatory Republican charges, the mood here yesterday was in fact calm and the process proceeded in an orderly manner, elections officials said. With 337 of the county's 609 precincts counted by last evening, Gore had gained 90 votes over the official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday.
In Palm Beach County, the bickering between Democrats and Republicans subsided as the job of recounting the county's 462,000 votes got underway. Early yesterday morning, with 31 of the county's 531 precincts tallied, Bush had a net gain of 12 votes.
The county's canvassing board had recounted more than 200 precincts as of early yesterday, but the tallies had not yet been reported. Many precincts have not been able to complete their recounts because thousands of ballots have been questioned, mainly by Republicans, who have been accused by some Democrats of trying to delay and discredit the recount.
While tensions appeared to ease inside the emergency operations center where as many as 30 teams of four people spent the day scrutinizing punch cards, election officials beefed up security and the mood among county employees ranged from punchy to edgy. Republicans have been complaining about everything from counters' long fingernails and jewelry snagging ballots, while Democrats have grumbled about their counterparts objecting to every sixth ballot for Gore.
The anxiety, perhaps, peaked shortly after midnight yesterday when security officials evacuated the building where the counting is taking place and called in bomb-sniffing dogs to inspect a suspicious briefcase. (It turned out that a court reporter had simply left the briefcase behind, county officials said.) Still, later in the day, they weren't taking any chances. Police checked everyone's bags at the door, barked at people milling around the hurricane shelter's lobby without proper credentials, and even ejected a reporter from the building after he tried to ask one of the dozens of counters a question.
''The Republicans are trying to impeach the process,'' said Ron Klein, a Democratic state senator from Boca Raton. ''But there are both Republicans and Democrats here and the process is open to public scrutiny. Things are moving along fine.''
In Miami-Dade County, Democrats parried a Republican challenge on Saturday night to the hand count, which the county's canvassing board approved Friday after previously deciding not to hold a recount. A judge yesterday morning dismissed the lawsuit and told the canvassing board it could start recounting its 654,000 ballots, more than any other county in the state.
The count began yesterday using machines to cull the county's ''undervotes'' - ballots on which the counting machines did not detect a vote for president. The process, using the same machines that counted ballots on Election Day, was intended to reduce the amount of time needed for the full hand recount. The machines culled undervotes from 502 of the 614 precincts. The hand recount is expected to last until Dec. 1.
Meg Vaillancourt of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
