ALLAHASSEE - Struggling to keep his presidential hopes alive, Al Gore fought yesterday against time and George W. Bush, accusing the Texas governor of trying to ''run out the clock'' to quash the vice president's court fight for the White House.
Bush, with the Dec. 12 deadline looming to name Florida's 25 representatives to the Electoral College, beefed up his legal team and went ahead with his transition to become the nation's 43d president.
The Gore side did chalk up a potentially significant victory yesterday, when a Leon County Circuit Court judge set a Monday trial date for a Democratic challenge of the vote in Seminole County. If the Democratic voter who brought the suit prevails, the case could end up turning the statewide vote to Gore.
But overwhelmingly, Gore was feeling the crunch yesterday, as mounting court activity and threatened legislative action left him little time to pursue his legal challenge of Florida's election.
There are 18 court cases related to the presidential election, and some of those may well be appealed to higher courts.
One of the cases is already at the nation's highest court, as Bush's lawyers yesterday asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a Nov. 21 Florida Supreme Court decision that allowed recounts to proceed in three counties. Gore's team argued that the issue ''does not belong in federal court.''
The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Friday, and for the first time ever, an audiotape of the full hearing will be available to the public on the same day.
In another case, Gore's lawyers yesterday failed to persuade Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls to begin counting several thousand disputed ballots today and finish within seven days.
Sauls did agree to have the ballots taken to Tallahassee by Friday afternoon, a small win for Gore, but a hearing will not be held until Saturday on whether to count the ballots. Further, Sauls has not ruled on the criteria by which the votes would be counted, if they are indeed counted.
Gore lawyer David Boies said he might appeal the decision.
Gore, speaking outside his home in Washington, D.C., accused the GOP of dragging out the process to thwart the Democrats' challenge.
''I believe this is a time to count every vote and not to run out the clock. This is not a time for delay, obstruction, and procedural roadblocks,'' the vice president said.
Pleading for a faster process, Gore attorney Dexter Douglass said the series of court fights was akin to a football game. ''It's easier to kill the clock than it is to move the ball,'' Douglass said. ''We need to move the ball, and the referee needs to get 'em off the ground or throw a penalty flag.''
Bush lawyer Barry Richard, who is handling four presidential election lawsuits at once, appealed for more time. There are ''only so many cases we can prepare for'' at the same time, he told Sauls.
Meanwhile, another political and legal fight was brewing across the Capitol plaza, as Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature mulled the idea of choosing its own electors, perhaps sooner than the Dec. 12 deadline.
While Gore's lawyers were arguing for the inclusion of a couple hundred votes here and there, two constitutional lawyers told state legislators they didn't need to count any Floridian's vote at all.
The US Constitution says that state legislatures shall send electors to the Electoral College, and the names don't have to be based on the results of an election, said John Yoo, a constitutional law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
''It is your constitutional duty in the end, and no one else's,'' Yoo told the Select Joint Committee on the Manner of Appointment of Presidential Electors.
''The prudent thing to do, the cautious thing, would be to start this process now,'' Yoo said.
Einer R. Elhauge, a Harvard Law School professor representing the Legislature in its friend-of-the-court brief before the US Supreme Court, agreed. It is ''your affirmative constitutional duty,'' Elhauge told the panel. ''In the end, my recommendation is - it's like the Boy Scouts - be prepared.''
The suggestions brought angry protests from Democratic legislators, who wondered whether it would be legal to act before the court cases were completed and moral to select electors irrespective of what Florida voters want.
''I certainly hope that we are not here because the Bush campaign needs a backup plan,'' said state Senator Tom Rosin. It would be ''a great disservice for the Legislature of Florida to be used for political purposes.''
''The last thing the Florida Legislature wants is to be seen as the ones who fixed the election for George Bush,'' said state Representative Kenneth Gottlieb.
There was no word last night on whether leaders would indeed call a special session of the Legislature. But Republican members indicated in their questioning that they were worried that if the court process dragged on too long, Florida might not have any electors representing the Sunshine State when the Electoral College meets Dec. 18.
It is ''a reasonable conclusion'' that the Republican leaders will call a special session, said Senate President John McKay. But he noted that the committee had not finished its work yet.
Despite the obvious concerns of Republican legislators, Gore attorney Jeff Robbins said it was ''inconceivable'' that the state body would name its own electors. Robbins said the Gore team had not decided whether to seek to enjoin the Legislature from selecting electors while the legal contest was still going on.
With the court activity growing, Bush assembled an expanded legal team, which promptly sought to discredit the Gore campaign's complaints.
Former secretary of state James A. Baker III, who is representing Bush, derided the Gore effort as he introduced the new attorneys. ''Their aim, of course, is to overturn the outcome of the election after 19 or 20 days of counts and recounts and more recounts,'' Baker said of the Gore team.
The new Bush lawyers called it a ''myth'' that some 10,000 ballots in Miami-Dade County were never counted, as the Gore campaign contends in its lawsuit.
''In fact, those are nonvotes,'' ballots cast by people who chose not to vote at all for president, Bush lawyer Irvin Terrell said in Tallahassee yesterday.
The Gore campaign countered, producing several south Florida voters who said they were certain their Gore votes had not been tallied. ''Just to get the ballot into the machine was confusing,'' said Palm Beach voter Elaine Grandis.
Lawyers filed briefs yesterday to the Florida Supreme Court on the question of Palm Beach County's ''butterfly'' ballot that some voters said they found confusing. Since the punch holes for Gore and Reform Party candidate Patrick J. Buchanan were close to each other, voter affidavits say, some people mistakenly voted for Buchanan. The Florida Supreme Court last night said it will consider whether to hear the case.
While the Gore camp focused on its dispute of votes in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Nassau counties, an independently brought lawsuit in Seminole County advanced yesterday, threatening to alter the election on its own.
When absentee ballot applications arrived without the proper voter identification numbers, Republican workers filled them in, a crime in Florida and grounds to reject the ballots filed by those voters, said Kenneth Sprigg, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
Leon County Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark refused to combine the Seminole case with the others, as Bush attorney Richard had requested, and she set a Monday trial date.
''It could be significant,'' Richard said, but he added that he didn't think his opponent's legal case was strong.
Sprigg, however, believes the Seminole case could be the one that makes Gore the next president.
''It's called flying under the radar,'' Sprigg said.
