ALLAHASSEE - One week after an election that left the presidency up for grabs, Florida counties reported their official ballot results giving George W. Bush a slim lead of 300 votes, but a circuit court judge yesterday opened the door to considering manual recounts filed after last night's deadline.
For the third time in seven days, Bush claimed victory in the race for Florida and hence the White House, as the top state elections official gave the results yesterday. Yet with three days left until overseas absentee ballots are counted - and two counties, Palm Beach and Broward, still fighting for the right to recount their votes by hand - the outcome of the election still hung in the balance, with advisers to both candidates claiming an advantage.
A third county, Miami-Dade, decided last night against a full hand count.
Last night, Bush's communications director, Karen Hughes, went as far as to say that Bush ''had won.'' She rejected the ongoing recounts as a fraudulent ''reinventing'' by Democrats of the results of the election, essentially dismissing the Florida circuit court ruling earlier in the day.
That decision, written by Judge Terry P. Lewis, upheld last night's 5 p.m. deadline for all official ballots. But it also validated the process of conducting manual recounts, warning Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris not to ''arbitrarily'' dismiss any such results that are filed late.
''It is, as the secretary acknowledges, within her discretion'' to include late returns in deciding the winner, Lewis wrote. ''To determine ahead of time that such returns will be ignored, however, unless caused by some act of God, is not the exercise of discretion. It is the abdication of that discretion.''
The Gore campaign had hoped for an order setting aside the deadline entirely, but hailed the nine-page decision as a victory nonetheless, saying it would force Harris to accept more accurate manual counts from Democratic strongholds that are tallying votes for a third time.
''We are pleased by the decision,'' said former Democratic secretary of state Warren Christopher, who is overseeing the Florida recount for Vice President Al Gore. ''Under this decision, we now have a vehicle for the full, fair, and accurate tabulation of the votes of the citizens of Florida.''
Republicans were unmoved by the ruling, however, saying they had confidence that Harris would not consider any returns filed after last night.
In part, that was because the ruling did not set specific criteria for Harris, a Republican and a Bush supporter, who may now use her own discretion in deciding which late ballots to consider. She had previously indicated she would not include any late recounts, especially those conducted by hand, and despite the judge's ruling, a lawyer for Harris yesterday said her ''position is essentially the same.''
Last night, in announcing the latest batch of results, Harris said the Bush victory would stand unless the counties then conducting manual counts provided her enough convincing evidence. The counties were to write her a letter by 2 p.m. today explaining their reasons for a recount, Harris said.
Late last night, the Miami-Dade County canvassing board voted, 2 to 1, against a full hand count after a sample hand count of nearly 6,000 votes in three precincts produced a net gain of only six votes for Gore and no change in the total, Reuters reported.
Harris's statements appeared consistent with the broad language of yesterday's ruling. In advising Harris how to proceed, the judge said Harris ''may'' ignore late ballots, but urged her to first consider their value as required under Florida law.
Lewis also said that if the Legislature allows for recounts, it also provided for them to be carried out in a timely fashion. He said forcing them to be completed within seven days ''would mean, however, that only in sparsely populated counties could a canvassing board safely exercise what the Legislature has clearly intended to be an option where the board has a real question as to the accuracy of a vote.''
But questions about how counties could be expected to recount their votes so quickly - or whether they should be allowed to recount them by hand at all - were immediately dismissed by the Bush campaign. Instead, Bush campaign officials claimed victory after last night's announcement, which gave Bush 2,910,492 votes in Florida. Gore received 2,910,192.
''The votes have been counted. The votes have been recounted. And the counties in Florida have now certified those results to the Florida secretary of state,'' Hughes said. ''All three times, the results showed that Governor Bush won.''
Hughes also disparaged the reliability of the ongoing recounts.
''Several selected counties in Florida, controlled by Democrats, have said they may continue a manual count. Yet if they go forward after tonight's deadline, Democratic counties are no longer recounting, they are reinventing.''
Shortly afterward, the Gore campaign chairman, William Daley, rebutted Hughes's accusations. ''This is not about politics; it is about determining the will of the people fully and accurately,'' he said.
Both sides agreed that closure was unlikely before Friday, the deadline for several thousand absentee ballots from overseas. Earlier yesterday, former Republican secretary of state James A. Baker III, representing the Bush campaign in Florida, touched off a round of bickering between the campaigns with an offer to withdraw all pending litigation if the Gore campaign would agree that the election would be decided by the sum of the ballots certified yesterday plus the overseas ballots due Friday at midnight.
Gore representatives dismissed the offer as empty. Christopher said it amounted to ''offering you sleeves from his vest.''
''There was really nothing in that proposal that was new,'' Christopher said.
''It truly was not a proposal,'' said Daley in Washington. ''It was strictly, in my opinion, an inaccurate description of the laws of Florida. The laws of Florida will be determined by the courts.''
In another round of disputes, Baker said the Bush campaign would ''categorically'' reject the idea of a hand count across Florida. Some Democrats had suggested that such a statewide effort might counterbalance the handcount in three counties. But Baker dismissed that as a delay tactic, joining in a growing Republican cry to end the count.
''When is it going to end?'' Baker said. ''I ask you, when is it going to end?''
''It's like the seventh day of being held hostage,'' echoed Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, who had stayed out of the spotlight since the state recount began last week, but reemerged for a town hall meeting yesterday. Describing the process as ''nerve-racking,'' the brother of the Republican nominee said the delay was taking an increasingly personal toll.
''I can't even walk around outside now,'' Jeb Bush said.
The various legal actions made for an increasingly complex thicket of court proceedings and rulings at the local and federal level. Last night, after an already hectic day in the courts, lawyers for Bush planned to appeal to a federal court in Atlanta to get the smattering of Florida hand recounts stopped, after their initial claim was rejected by a US District Judge in Miami.
Far from the legal wrangling and dueling news conferences by both sides, the two candidates remained out of sight. Bush, sequestered at his Crawford ranch since last Friday, did not appear for as much as a photo opportunity; aides said he met with state officials to review pending executions and other state business.
Likewise, Gore stayed holed up in the vice president's mansion in Washington.
Yet the two campaigns continued to wage an image battle, down to the smallest of details. Before Baker spoke, Bush campaign aides placed 10 brand-new American flags behind the podium. They also replaced a white tablecloth on a stand holding a water pitcher with a new, blue covering.
Hours later, when Christopher stepped up to the same podium, the 10 flags were gone. The Bush team even took its blue tablecloth, leaving the water stand bare.
Johnson reported from Tallahassee; Kornblut from Austin, Texas.
