EST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A Republican lawsuit to stop the hand counting of ballots in Florida's presidential election headed to court today, but Democrats sought to dismiss it as a ''frivolous claim.'' They also tried to block any effort by the Republican secretary of state to certify election results before the latest tallies are complete.
''The law provides for manual recounts as one measure to assure that errors in the tally are identified and corrected,'' Kendall Coffey, a lawyer representing the Gore campaign, wrote Friday to Secretary of State Katherine Harris in a letter released last night.
Democrats are concerned that Harris may unilaterally undercut the hand counts, deeming the election returns determined through last week's machine recount as her state's official vote in the election.
On Friday, Harris said Republican presidential contender George W. Bush had 2,910,074 votes to 2,909,114 cast for Democrat Al Gore, a difference of 960 votes, with one county still to be recounted: Palm Beach County.
The Associated Press surveyed election officials in all 67 Florida counties, including Palm Beach, and set Bush's lead at 327 votes.
Under a partial hand recount by Palm Beach County election officials on Saturday, Bush's margin fell to 288 votes, with the prospect of its falling even further in other recounts underway or about to begin in heavily Democratic counties.
Both candidates need to win the popular vote in Florida to receive the state's 25 electoral votes and achieve the 270-vote Electoral College majority needed to become president.
Separately, Florida Democrats responded to the lawsuit being heard this morning in federal court by arguing that the injunction sought by the Republicans has ''no prospect of succeeding on the merits,'' and that the claims it is based on ''are frivolous.''
Their response to the lawsuit filed Saturday also said: ''Florida has embarked upon an orderly and structured process to enfranchise voters by more accurately counting the votes in the recent election.''
The hearing was slated to begin at 9:30 a.m. in Miami before US District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks.
Early yesterday morning, after a third machine count and a grueling 10-hour manual recount of votes from four precincts, officials from Palm Beach County decided to count by hand all of the county's more than 425,000 ballots. The process could take days.
Volusia County also began a manual count of its 184,000 ballots yesterday, as requested by the Gore campaign. The result is not expected until Wednesday.
In addition, a count of absentee ballots mailed by Floridians living overseas is set for Friday, perhaps deciding the outcome of the election.
Amid the legal maneuvering, senior advisers to both candidates expressed hope yesterday that the protracted election dispute would end soon.
Warren M. Christopher, the former Democratic secretary of state overseeing the recount for Gore, told NBC's ''Meet the Press'' that the dispute can be settled ''in a manner of days,'' after the hand recounts and the tally of overseas ballots.
Appearing separately, James A. Baker III, the former Republican secretary of state representing Bush in the process, repeated the Bush camp's offer to dismiss the lawsuit ''promptly'' if the Gore campaign would ''agree with us to respect the results of the statewide recount, subject only to computing - or tabulating - the votes of the overseas ballots.''
Baker said the latest round of recounts was unnecessary.
''Florida has voted. Governor Bush won. Florida has had a complete recount. Governor Bush won. And the Gore campaign keeps asking for more and more recounts, and they're going to keep asking for recounts until they're satisfied with the result,'' he said on ABC's ''This Week.''
Speaking on the same program, Christopher countered that Gore's request for recounts was perfectly legal.
''This is nothing we invented,'' he said. ''This is Florida law. And, frankly, it's the law in a number of other states in the union.''
Meanwhile, former US senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, issued a statement yesterday warning against turning the presidential contest over to the courts. He argued it would ''deepen public doubt about the outcome.''
''Vice President Gore should make it clear he would concede the victory to Governor Bush if he loses Florida after the more scrupulous recount and the counting of absentee ballots,'' Nunn wrote. ''Governor Bush should instruct his lawyers to drop their lawsuit and let the state and local Florida officials do their duty under the law. The two men who would lead America must now act in a manner worthy of the office they seek.''
The vagaries of a hand count were on clear display in Palm Beach County late Saturday night and early yesterday morning.
In a machine count of the county's 425,000 ballots, the third after a count Election Day and a recount later in the week, Gore picked up 36 votes while Bush lost three. In the hand recount of about 4,200 ballots from four precincts, Gore gained 33 votes and Bush gained 14.
At the start of the session, election officials held ballots up to a light in an effort to determine the intent of the voters who marked punch cards that are then fed into a machine counter. During that process, Gore was gaining many more extra votes than Bush.
Amid that recount, however, the board decided to change its counting procedure. It instructed workers to concentrate on the appearance of ''chads,'' the bits of paper that cover the punch-holes next to candidates' names. Ballots were either counted or discarded depending on how the chads were indented or hanging from the ballot card. During that process, Gore picked up fewer extra votes.
After the count was finished, Democrats said the discrepancy between hand and machine counts justified extending the hand count to the rest of Palm Beach County.
''I believe the people of Palm Beach County and the people of Florida deserve to have the best possible representation and to have this settled,'' said County Commissioner Carol Roberts, a Democrat on the three-member canvassing board.
Another Democrat on the board is Theresa LePore, the county's supervisor of elections and the person who designed the disputed ballot.
The third board member, Charles Burton, also is a registered Democrat, but he is a Palm Beach County Court judge appointed by Governor Jeb Bush, a Republican who is the Republican candidate's brother.
Burton tried to put the brakes on the proceedings, requesting an advisory opinion from the secretary of state and the election department before a vote was taken. He so moved, but no one seconded him.
''We ought to seek the opinion of those with expertise to advise us,'' Burton protested. ''We need to make an informed opinion rather than a rash opinion.''
But Roberts refused to budge.
''We do not need an opinion to tell us what the state law is,'' Roberts said. ''The law is clear.''
Burton said he would ''look into'' the possibility of reversing the decision.
''The people will have to judge by what went on last night who was acting along partisan lines and who wasn't,'' the judge said. ''I don't know that it's a mistake. But I don't have all the facts. I suppose only history will determine if it was the right decision.''
Abraham reported from West Palm Beach and Johnson from Tallahassee. Anne E. Kornblut in Austin, Texas, and Susan Milligan in Washington, of the Globe Staff, as well as Reuters contributed to this report.
