-Caveat Lector- (Today is the 33rd day of the election, including election day. This suggests a Masonic connection to today's US Supreme Court decision. --SW) U.S. Supreme Court halts recounts By LEIGH STROPE, Associated Press WASHINGTON (December 9, 2000 2:48 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon granted George W. Bush's request to stop recounts in Florida. Prior to that 2:40 p.m. announcement election judges raced the clock, sifting through thousands of ballots across Florida in a partial manual recount ordered by the state Supreme Court. Lawyers for George W. Bush had beseeched the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt, but Al Gore's campaign manager said the count should continue "for good or bad." Evidently concerned that Gore might move into the lead, Bush pressed three courts - two federal and one state - to stop the recount, at least temporarily. "Whatever tabulations result from this process will be incurable in the public consciousness and, once announced, cannot be retracted," no matter how flawed, his lawyers argued in papers filed at the U.S. Supreme Court. But as the recount machinery geared up, Bush was rebuffed at mid-day by the state Supreme Court, where the justices refused to halt the recount to give time for the federal courts to rule. The legal maneuvering followed a 4-3 ruling on Friday by the state Supreme Court that ordered the partial manual recount sought by Gore, and whittled Bush's lead to an infinitesimal 193 votes out of roughly six million cast statewide. By mid-day Saturday, Gore had gained a net four votes on his rival, based on the first, partial returns from Orange County. The White House is the prize that will go to the winner, since neither man could claim a majority in the Electoral College without Florida's 25 votes. The court ordered recounts of an estimated 45,000 ballots in dozens of the state's 67 counties on which machines failed to detect a vote for president - so-called undervotes. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, empowered to carry out the high court's directions, set a 2 p.m. Sunday deadline for completing the recount. That would give state officials time to certify a slate of electors by Tuesday, the date that theoretically could shield the electors from a subsequent challenge. At the same time, though, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature hovered in the background. Lawmakers convened Friday in special session, and seemed prepared to vote by mid-week on its own slate of electors - this one loyal to Bush. Pending the result of any recount, action by the legislature could establish rival slates of electors and create a conflict when the Electoral College votes are counted in Congress on Jan. 6. Both camps rushed supporters to Florida - lawyers, political supporters to help oversee the recounts and politicians to wage the obligatory public relations campaign. New York Gov. George Pataki was on the scene for Bush; Gore countered with Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who was booed by Bush's supporters when she sought to speak at an outdoor news conference. In Washington, Gore's campaign manager, Donna Brazille, said of the recount, "This is what we wanted, for the votes to be counted, for good or bad. We don't know what the outcome will be." There are 9,000 undervotes in Miami-Dade, which gives the best chance of catapulting Gore ahead of Bush. The Republicans said the only way to avoid double counting of votes in Miami-Dade would be to conduct a full manual recount of all 600,000 ballots there. Gore was in Washington while the battle raged in Florida. Bush was in Texas, retreating to the solitude of his ranch, this time without the aides who had been helping him plan a transition to power. "This is what happens when, for the first time in modern history, a candidate resorts to lawsuits to try to overcome the outcome of an election for president," said former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the head of Bush's legal team. "It is very sad. It is sad for Florida. It is sad for the nation. And it is sad for democracy," he said Friday night after the state court ruled. The opinion overturned a ruling Wednesday by Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls. Sauls immediately recused himself from the case without explanation and it was reassigned to Judge Terry Lewis. Lewis told lawyers for the two campaigns in Tallahassee that he had read the state court's ruling "and I intend to follow it." Gore's lawyers called for the counting to begin immediately and asked the court to establish a procedure to count undervotes statewide, while Bush's lawyer suggested a slower approach. The judge declined to set a single standard for determine which votes count, leaving it to local officials. "Hours make a difference here," said Gore lawyer David Boies, saying about 40,000 disputed ballots had to be counted. "Minutes may make a difference." "It's going to be a big job," said Bush attorney Phil Beck, projecting that 64,000 ballots needed to be counted. "I think the Supreme Court has created an impossible situation here." Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley said the Florida Supreme Court decision caught himself by surprise, but the vice president remained optimistic. 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