WASHINGTON — The Florida Supreme Court ordered the counting of thousands of additional ballots from Democratic counties, giving new life to Al Gore's challenge to the state's presidential election tallies.
The court, by a 4-3 vote, ordered a lower court to begin recounting votes. The justices also ordered hand recounts statewide of votes that didn't register on tabulation machines.
"Because time is of the essence, the recount shall begin immediately," the court said.
The court also restored 383 votes that had been excluded from the certified count that showed Gore trailing Texas Governor George W. Bush's by 537 votes in Florida, whose 25 electoral votes will decide the race.
The ruling increases the possibility that the state will name two rival slates of electors and force Congress to choose between them. Leaders in the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature called a special session to consider appointing electors who will support Bush.
The high court's decision preserves Gore's hopes to carry Florida, which suffered a setback earlier this afternoon when two Florida refused to disqualify thousands of absentee ballots due to alleged irregularities by Republican election workers. While Gore wasn't a party to the suits by Democratic activists, throwing out the ballots would have tipped the election in his favor.
The Bush camp also might appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which already has called into question an earlier ruling by the Florida Supreme Court.
The Gore campaign asked the Florida Supreme Court to reverse a ruling by Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who on Monday threw out Gore's challenge.
During oral arguments yesterday, several justices questioned whether new counts would cause the state to miss next Tuesday's deadline for ensuring congressional recognition of the state's electors.
Gore lawyers said Sauls imposed too demanding a standard for recounts, concluded erroneously that a new count only in selected counties would be improper and gave too much deference to the decisions of the county election officials who cut off the counts.
Bush's lawyers argued that the Florida court must respect the trial judge's conclusions that the two witnesses presented by Gore at trial weren't credible.
The Democrats want to include partial hand recount results from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and machine recount results from Nassau County.
The Gore campaign additionally asked the justices to order reconsideration of 3,300 disputed ballots in Palm Beach County and a hand count of 9,000 votes in Miami-Dade that didn't register in the machines. The Gore campaign also says counters should tally votes from so-called dimpled ballots—voter cards with bulges but no perforations.
The state's highest court unanimously sided with Gore during an earlier round in the legal fracas. In that case, the justices extended the deadline for counties to submit returns from manual ballot recounts.