Q. How did Al Gore fare in yesterday's two big court decisions?
A. Gore suffered a crushing loss in the Florida state courts when Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls ruled against the vice president on every count yesterday, saying that lawyers for the Democratic candidate had failed to meet the burden of proof for contesting the election.
Earlier in the day, Gore was denied a much-needed moral or political victory, though he was at least spared a second defeat, when the US Supreme Court returned the case it heard last Friday to the Florida Supreme Court for clarification.
Q. What can Gore do now?
A. The vice president is almost out of options. Gore's best chance is to press his appeal of Sauls' decision with the Florida Supreme Court, which gave him a favorable ruling last month in the case the US Supreme Court returned yesterday.
There is also a chance that cases filed by Democratic voters in Seminole and Martin counties, which are due to go to trial tomorrow, could cost George W. Bush votes, conceivably enough to give Gore the election.
Q. So what are Gore's odds of becoming president?
A. Not good. With every loss he suffers in court, the vice president faces a tougher legal standard, and a greater political burden, as he advances to the next round of appeals. The longer the legal skirmishing goes on, the more difficult it becomes for Gore to score a come-from-behind victory.
Q. What was the basis for Judge Sauls' ruling?
A. The judge concluded that the Gore campaign had failed to show that the voting in Florida was undermined by ''any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud'' and that the local county election officials in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties acted within their authority when deciding whether and how to conduct manual recounts.
Sauls also ruled that there was no legal requirement that incomplete results from Palm Beach County be certified or accepted after the deadline for certification by Secretary of State Katherine Harris, as Gore's lawyers had asked.
Though there was ''voter error and/or less than total accuracy,'' said Sauls, the Gore team had not met the formidable burden of proof it needed to overturn the election.
Q. What was the basis for the US Supreme Court's ruling?
A. The US Supreme Court was asked to rule by George W. Bush's campaign on whether the Florida Supreme Court correctly interpreted the law when it extended the deadline for certification of the election to allow several Florida counties to conduct manual recounts last month.
After holding hearings on the case last Friday, the US Supreme Court vacated the Florida Supreme Court decision yesterday and returned the case to the state court for clarification.
The Florida court was correct insofar as it based its ruling on its power to interpret state statutes, the US Supreme Court said, but may have erred when basing parts of its ruling on the Florida Constitution.
The US Supreme Court asked the Florida court more clearly to define the rationale for its ruling. It appeared to be an invitation to the Florida justices to tailor their decision in ways the US Supreme Court would find acceptable.
Q. What about the other pending cases, in Seminole and Martin counties?
A. Local Democrats are suing election officials in Seminole and Martin counties over an absentee ballot issue. In each case, local election officials allowed Republican Party operatives to correct thousands of incomplete applications from Republican voters for absentee ballots. Some 25,000 absentee ballots are at stake, and were the courts to discard them it might take enough votes from Bush to give Gore the statewide lead.
