ORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - With a deadline of 5 p.m. today, election officials labored to wrap up a recount in which Al Gore appeared unlikely to overcome George W. Bush's slim edge in the race for the White House.
On the next-to-last day of recounting, Gore trailed by 497 votes, according to unofficial tallies, and some Democratic advisers were conceding for the first time that Gore would fall short. But the tightest presidential race in 124 years, and the longest ever, showed no sign of nearing the finish line.
The Gore camp has said that the vice president will not concede if today's state-certified vote shows him losing. Instead, aides were making tentative plans for the vice president to explain his position in a speech tomorrow, to set the stage for arguments Friday before the US Supreme Court.
''Obviously, we want him to talk about why we're still contesting the election and put it into the big picture,'' a top adviser said on condition of anonymity.
Gore's lawyers plan to fight certification of the ballots from Miami-Dade County, which quit before completing its recount, and from Palm Beach County, which the Gore campaign said has not followed recount standards set by the state Supreme Court. The vice president also may object to results certified in Nassau County.
A Gore spokesman disputed suggestions that the speech was needed to shore up flagging support among fellow Democrats.
''As a result of some of the Republican activities and shenanigans of the past week - Jim Baker's comments about going around the Supreme Court, and efforts to have mobs influence the outcome of some of the vote-counting - it has hardened Democrats all across the country,'' said Gore's chief spokesman, Chris Lehane. He was referring to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who is representing Bush in the election skirmish, and to rowdy demonstrations by some Bush supporters.
The Bush campaign yesterday dropped a lawsuit against 14 Florida counties that had rejected hundreds of overseas absentee ballots, but gave no hint of pulling back its legal troops. Instead, lawyers have begun suits against five counties in which Bush stands to pick up votes from military personnel stationed outside the country. A Bush lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, also said that some counties were taking a more liberal look at including military ballots.
In the improbable event that Bush loses Florida's 25 electoral votes tonight, he is prepared to contest the results. And there is a pending appeal in the US Supreme Court, in which Bush will have the support of Florida's Republican-led Legislature.
With votes added, votes subtracted, and missing votes located with less than a day to go before the 5 p.m. deadline, Bush's unofficial lead stood at 497 last night, out of 6 million cast on Nov. 7. Before the manual recounts began, the secretary of state, Katherine Harris, had put the official margin at 930 votes.
Although certification of the new results could come as early as 6 p.m. today, it could also take much longer.
''There could be an injunction. ... the Legislature could take it over,'' said a Harris spokesman, Ron McKay. ''It could be delayed an hour, it could be delayed 10 hours.''
In Austin, Texas, aides plotted Bush's next public relations move. There was some talk of a statement, either by the candidate or by a representative, in the aftermath of the announcement tonight of Florida's results. Another possibility was that Bush would maintain his silence until the US Supreme Court meets.
''I'm not going to speculate about what's going to happen,'' said a Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer. ''We will await the outcome and make clear'' how Bush feels, ''if and when we have anything to make clear.''
As screaming matches erupted anew over the standards for validating votes in Palm Beach, and as Republican protesters shouted down a much smaller contingent of Democratic supporters outside the Broward County site, intransigence was evident everywhere.
Demonstrators also gathered in Tallahassee, where the Bush campaign brought out three winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor to stress how soldiers view the importance of their ballots from overseas.
While Republican support for Bush's battle appeared as strong as ever, Gore's camp has received some calls from Democrats for him to concede.
''What makes a liberal and what makes a conservative is what the difference here is,'' said Edward Wagschal, an industrial designer from Manhattan who took time out from his vacation to carry a sign for Gore outside the Broward County courthouse, where a three-member canvassing board was meeting. ''A conservative is more aggressive by nature. Liberals are more willing to negotiate and to give in to keep the peace.''
Gore's staff estimated that he probably would fall as many as 400 votes short of the number necessary to win. The GOP has picked up votes in counties that revised their totals to include additional overseas ballots, while Gore has not gained as many extra votes as his campaign had expected in Palm Beach, which is using a more stringent standard than Broward is in trying to determine what voters meant to do inside the polling place.
In Broward, with the review of all ballots completed around midnight, unofficial tallies showed Gore gaining 567 votes there. The day's tedium was broken briefly in the afternoon, when a GOP lawyer, William Sherer, kept objecting to the inclusion of absentee ballots.
''You're trolling for votes here because it's clear that you can't win this election,'' he said. The board chairman, Robert Lee, ordered him not to return after the lunch break.
To the north, in Palm Beach County, the prospects for meeting the 5 p.m. deadline were much less certain, with about 9,000 ballots yet to be examined. As election workers vowed to work through the night, Gore had lost votes to Bush in the Democratic-leaning county, causing Democrats to question the standards being used to examine ballots there.
The Gore campaign has insisted repeatedly that a fair recount in the three counties would give the vice president the election. John Sasso, the longtime Democratic operative from Massachusetts who managed Michael S. Dukakis's presidential bid in 1988, said the 10,000 disputed undervotes in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties included more than enough to hand Florida to Gore.
He was so confident that he suggested the Gore campaign reiterate its offer of a statewide hand recount.
''Broward shows that when the recounts are conducted fairly, efficiently and judiciously, that Al Gore will pick up significant amounts of votes,'' said Sasso, who had just finished a week working for Gore in Florida. ''The people disenfranchised by the machine counts tend to be the elderly, lower-income families, and the minority community. That is the same pattern that will show in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.''
But Brock D. Bierman, a newly reelected Rhode Island state representative who spent his week in Florida working for Bush, said the Democrats wanted ballots with ''scratches and creases'' to go in the Gore column. He called that standard ''the low road,'' and added that the Democrats are the ones using heated political rhetoric, while Republican demonstrators are only applying their First Amendment rights to free speech.
The Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joseph I. Lieberman, has accused Republicans of using thug tactics to intimidate canvas boards, particarly the one in Miami-Dade.
''Gore and Lieberman are going to do whatever it takes to win, and that's not right,'' said Bierman, who added that he was leaving Florida early because his family had received a threatening telephone call after he appeared on national TV Friday. ''Gore and Lieberman owe my family a personal apology. They're the ones trying to stir everything up.''
Meanwhile, the candidates stayed largely out of sight. Bush spent most of yesterday at his ranch in Texas and returned to the governor's mansion in the evening to a crowd of supporters yelling, ''President Bush! President Bush!''
Gore went out for chocolate-chip ice cream, then returned to his official residence in Washington, where a handful of demonstrators massed. While some backed Gore, others shouted: ''Get out of Cheney's house!''
Gorov reported from Fort Lauderdale; Johnson from Washington. Tina Cassidy of the Globe Staff contributed from Tallahassee.
