FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - With the presidency of the United States hanging in the balance, media attention has focused on whether Florida's Supreme Court will force Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris to include hand recounts now underway in three key counties in her final vote tally for the Sunshine State.
But equally important to the outcome of the presidential race is the second question before Florida's highest court today: What constitutes a valid vote?
Election officials in Broward County, a Democratic stronghold, have asked Florida's Supreme Court to clarify the standard for an acceptable ballot marking. The court's decision on whether imperfectly punched ballots - including the now notorious ''hanging,'' ''dimpled,'' and ''pregnant'' chads - are valid may well determine whether Vice President Al Gore or Governor George W. Bush of Texas wins the election.
Extrapolating from partial tallies in the three counties where manual recounts are still underway, Gore appears likely to fall short of the 931 votes he needs to defeat Bush if a standard that throws out most imperfectly punched ballots is applied.
However, Democratic leaders argue that Gore could still win the White House - if Florida uses a standard of voter intent, used in some other states, which allows ballots that are not fully punched out to count.
''The machine tally suggests people cast a vote in every other race from US senator down to insurance commissioner and yet supposedly skipped the presidential race, which seems a little strange,'' said US Representative Peter Deutsch, Democrat of Fort Lauderdale. ''But if you just look at the ballots, you can clearly see a partial hole or indentation next to Gore. So it's pretty obvious what the voter's intent was. And that's the same standard that is applied in Texas and other states. It's not brain surgery.''
Recognizing the crucial role such ballots could play, election officials in Broward County yesterday unanimously agreed to count ballots where voters did not punch the card through, but appeared to indicate their preference. Just last week, these same officials had said they would apply a stricter standard and reject any presidential ballots that did not have at least two corners of the chad detached.
The two Democratic and one Republican Broward County Canvassing Board members reversed course only after a circuit court judge warned that that they risked disenfranchising voters and noted that Florida law required them to consider voters' intent.
Before Broward officials changed the standard for an acceptable ballot, Gore had picked up 92 votes under the two-corner rule, with roughly half the recount complete. That tally, when added to early returns from recounts still underway in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, suggested to some observers that Gore will not reach the more than 930 votes he needs to overtake Bush.
Yesterday, however, Broward election officials predicted the decision to allow some dimpled and partially perforated ballots will be a boon to Gore.
David Abel of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
