ASHINGTON - Facing an uphill battle to reopen the Florida election, Vice President Al Gore sought to rally public support to his side yesterday, telling a national television audience last night, ''This is America. When votes are cast, we count them.''
Gore's address came 20 days after the presidential election, amid signs that the public's patience, and that of some Democratic Party members, may be on the wane. As Gore's lawyers formally filed a ''contest'' of election results in a Florida court, a new poll found that six in 10 Americans think the vice president should concede the election to Republican George W. Bush.
Gore, seeking to regain public support, did not try to claim that he will be declared the Florida winner and hence become president. Instead, Gore used his five-minute address, possibly the most important of his long public career, to portray himself as the victim of a Republican effort to stymie a full, fair count. Denying a claim by Bush that he wants to recount until he wins, the vice president said he does not seek ''recount after recount as some have charged, but a single, full, and accurate count.''
''We haven't had that yet,'' Gore said from his Naval Observatory residence in front of a row of American flags. ''Great efforts have been made to prevent the counting of these votes. Lawsuit after lawsuit has been filed to delay the count and to stop the counting for many precious days between Election Day and the deadline for having the count finished.''
A sense of weariness marks reaction abroad. A20.
" Many unknowns in Gore's fight for redemption. A21.
" Questions, answers on the legal developments. A22.
Throughout the day yesterday, Democratic leaders said the party was united behind Gore's effort, but some are increasingly anxious for the saga to be over quickly if the vice president seems destined to lose in court. US Representative Julia Carson of Indiana became the first Democratic member of Congress to publicly call on Gore to give up the fight.
Still, the vice president's advisers were heartened yesterday that there was no dramatic break in Democratic ranks. There were no high-profile press conferences in which Democrats urged Gore to give up the fight. Instead, Gore placed a telephone conference call to the two top Democratic congressional leaders, Senate minority leader Thomas Daschle and House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt, who both vowed their support.
''There's overwhelming support for your effort and a realization that if we completed the count, there is little doubt that you'd be ahead,'' Daschle told Gore. Daschle and Gephardt made the call after arriving in Tallahassee to provide a public show of support for the vice president.
Gore, meanwhile, insisted he was fighting the certification of Bush as the winner in Florida not just because he wanted to win the presidency. ''It is about the integrity of our system of government,'' Gore said. ''And that integrity can only be assured if every vote that is legally cast is actually counted according to the law.''
''There are more than enough votes'' to overcome Bush's 537-vote lead in Florida, the vice president said.
Leon Panetta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff and a longtime Gore confidant, said in an interview that Bush has temporarily helped the Gore cause by asking the US Supreme Court to enter the case. At the very least, Panetta said, the court's entry keeps the case alive for at least another week, during which Gore can work in Florida to overturn the result.
But Panetta said there is concern among Democrats about newly released poll numbers that show waning public support for Gore's effort. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released yesterday found that 60 percent of those surveyed want Gore to concede, including one-fourth of Gore's supporters.
''I think there is a point at which the patience of the American people starts to wear thin,'' Panetta said, while stressing that he backs Gore's court challenge. ''You don't want it to have to reach a point where you are dragged kicking and screaming to the concession.''
Panetta said that the ''drop-dead date'' probably is Dec. 12, when Florida must pick representatives to the Electoral College. It will be an uphill fight to overturn the election results by that date, Panetta said, but Gore does have a chance to win, Panetta said.
Former secretary of labor Robert Reich, who backed former senator Bill Bradley in the Democratic primary, on ABC's ''Good Morning America'' yesterday became one of the first prominent Democrats to raise doubts about the vice president's strategy.
''There have been counts and recounts, there's been an extended deadline for these votes, and the country needs some closure,'' Reich said.
Representative Carson told the Indianapolis Star that the country is ''battle-torn and we ought not to take the country through any more.''
Privately, some Democrats expressed outright discouragement.
''Most Democrats are fairly discouraged right now,'' said a top party official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''It seems likely Gore will have to run the legal table in Florida to win, and that doesn't seem likely. But this thing has taken so many strange twists anything is possible.''
This official said, however, that ''Democratic elites'' are willing to stand with Gore for as much as another two weeks because several court actions are pending. Gore himself set a deadline of sorts, saying in an interview with The New York Times that ''I feel certain'' that the votes will be counted by Dec. 12.
While Gore was launching his public relations offensive, the Bush camp was also doing everything it could to present the Texas governor as the president-elect. Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, appeared at a Washington news conference to declare that the Republican ticket was moving forward in its transition plans. Cheney berated the General Services Administration - and, by extension, the Clinton-Gore administration - for refusing to turn over $5.3 million in public funds that help pay for the transition.
From the perspective of the Gore camp, the vice president wants to count all of the votes, not contest the outcome. But the Bush strategy is to portray Gore as a sore loser who is unhappy with the result and who is dividing the country in the process.
