ALLAHASSEE - The Gore campaign yesterday ratcheted down talk of pursuing legal action in the presidential election, while the Bush campaign seized on an unofficial recount of Florida votes to continue pressuring its opponents for a concession.
Both camps pointed toward next week's count of thousands of absentee ballots cast by Florida voters living overseas as probably determining the winner. A second straight drop in the Nasdaq Composite Index and Dow Jones industrial average added to the pressure for a quick resolution.
An unofficial Associated Press recount of votes in Florida's 67 counties completed early yesterday gave Republican George W. Bush a 327-vote lead in the state over Democrat Al Gore. The Florida secretary of state's office last night reported a 961-vote lead for Bush, with one county still to be recounted.
Both tallies were smaller than the 1,784-vote margin on Election Day that touched off the debate about which candidate should receive the state's 25 electoral votes, which both need to achieve the 270-vote majority required by the Electoral College to win.
While the results will not be certified until Tuesday, and the state will not count the overseas absentee ballots until Friday, the Bush campaign seized upon the news to call on Gore to concede.
''For the good of the country, and for the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end and the business of an orderly transition should begin,'' James A. Baker III, a former secretary of state who is supervising the recount for the Bush campaign, said at a news conference in the Florida Senate atrium.
Baker conceded that the overseas ballots had yet to be counted, and his campaign would await their result, but he added that they ''have traditionally favored the Republican candidate.''
Before that, however, the Bush campaign could be going to court. Late last night, Bush gave Baker the authority to seek a court injunction to block manual recounts of votes in several Florida counties, the Associated Press reported. GOP officials involved in a conference call yesterday said that Baker wasn't likely to seek the injunction, but that the decision was up to him.
The campaign has argued that manual recounts are more susceptible to fraud and mistakes than machine counts.
Earlier in the day, Baker held out the possibility that Bush might seek recounts in other states. In New Mexico, election officials said early yesterday that Gore's margin there had fallen to less than 200 votes, throwing Gore's victory there into doubt. But Even without the state's five Electoral College votes, the vice president would achieve exactly 270 votes if he won Florida.
An hour after Baker spoke, Gore's election emissaries, campaign chairman William Daley and former secretary of state Warren Christopher, strode to the same podium and branded talk of a concession premature.
''The wait to get these results is frustrating, frustrating to all of us in both campaigns, and to the American people obviously, as well. But calls for a declaration of a victor before all the votes are accurately tabulated are inappropriate,'' Daley said.
Christopher dismissed fears of international jitters, saying, ''Our constitutional fathers wisely provided a period of time after the election and before the electors meet. We're in the very early part of that period. And I don't see any threat to our Constitution. Indeed, what we're doing is a constitutional process.''
Amid that backdrop, the candidates themselves continued to wage an image battle.
In Austin, Texas, Bush was photographed meeting with his running mate, Dick Cheney, and other potential members of an administration. ''The quicker this gets resolved, the better off it is for the nation,'' said the Texas governor, seated with Lawrence Lindsey, who has been mentioned as a possible treasury secretary; Condoleezza Rice, a possible national security adviser; and Andrew Card, a potential choice as White House chief of staff.
''We will be prepared'' to take office on Jan. 20, added Bush.
The governor's campaign apparatus stayed at full tilt, issuing a statement at 4:37 a.m. local time, just after the Florida recount was completed, in which it claimed victory for the second time.
''The vote count on Tuesday night showed Governor Bush won Florida's election, and a recount has now confirmed his victory,'' the statement from communications director Karen Hughes said.
Throughout the day, the campaign continued to flood reporters with e-mails. One highlighted editorials condemning the Gore campaign's talk of legal action in Palm Beach County, where more 19,000 ballots were thrown out and voters complained that a misleading ballot led them to vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick J. Buchanan rather than Gore.
Another e-mail included a newspaper story about first- and fourth-graders in Shreveport, La., successfully using the disputed ballot in a mock election.
For his part, Gore remained at the vice president's mansion in Washington. Photographers were admitted as he and his children played touch football. Asked about the election, Gore said, ''I think we are going to win this game. We're ahead 6-0 so I'm very optimistic.'' Smiling, he added, ''I'm talking about the touch football game.''
Largely absent from the stage were the bevy of aides who on Thursday complained about the disputed ballots in Florida, saying ''the will of the people'' had been thwarted. In his news conference, Daley was more muted, a day after he had said the campaign would support lawsuits to remedy the problems.
While the campaign continued to take affidavits from people interested in possible lawsuits, it faced criticism from fellow Democrats about taking the dispute into the judicial arena.
Thomas Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader, said, ''I'd advise we exhaust all other remedies before we attempt any consideration of a court challenge.''
Another Democrat, US Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, told reporters after a speech Thursday, ''I want Al Gore to win this election but, more than that, I want somebody to win this election. I would urge both Al Gore and George Bush to think of the country - the continuity of government, its stability - and avoid any collateral attacks on the process.'' Daley later asserted that Torricelli said he was misquoted.
For the second day, the financial markets reflected investor unease. The Dow Industrials fell 231 points to 10,603, a drop of just over 2 percent, while the Nasdaq dropped 171 points to 3,029, its lowest close of the year. On Thursday, within 15 minutes of Daley mentioning lawsuits over the Florida ballots, the Dow dropped 150 points.
An incomplete national total of votes showed Gore with 49,145,560 votes, or 48.3 percent, and Bush with 48,947,577, or 48.1 percent, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time. In Florida, yesterday's unofficial tally gave Bush 2,910,198 votes and Gore 2,909,871 votes.
Florida election officials yesterday defended the Palm Beach ballot, saying in a statement it ''conforms in all respects to the requirements of Florida law.'' Today, county officials were going to recount votes in three Palm Beach precincts before deciding whether to conduct a complete recount.
In Miami's Dade County, elections officials will meet Tuesday to discuss a recount by hand, while in Polk County, officials were rescanning ballots in 60 of 163 precincts to reconcile the number of ballots handed out with the number of votes cast. Broward County officials also voted 2 to 1 to do a hand recount of three precincts Monday. If there is a change, they too will consider a full hand-recount.
Those plans could be put on hold if the Bush campaign seeks a court injunction against the hand counts.
Speaking of the developments, Daley said, ''I hope all Americans agree that the will of the people, not a computer glitch, should select our next president.''
Baker pointed to history in arguing against a court challenge over the election results. He noted that both Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford decided against contesting close elections in 1960 and 1976.
''Both Vice President Nixon and President Ford put the country's interests first,'' he said. ''They accepted the vote for the good of the country.
Globe reporters Anne E. Kornblut in Austin, Texas, and John Aloysius Farrell in Washington, as well as the Associated Press, contributed to this report.
