Gore Plays football, legal team plays hardball

His lawyers planned to make the same request on Monday of Dade County. Gore is particularly interested in Broward County, where Democrats contend upto 6,700 ballots were punched, but not all the way through, preventing machines from counting them.

“Al Gore carried Broward County with more than 60 percent of the vote,” an aide said. “We believe a hand recount will put most of those 6,700 ballots in our column and Al Gore on top.”

Republicans on Friday again accused Gore of trying to rerun the election, and suggested that if he persisted they may make challenges of their own. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said the Vice-President merely wanted to make sure “The will of the people is fairly and accurately” represented in the final vote tally.

“This is not just important to Al Gore. This ought to be important to George W Bush, and it is obviously important to the American people,” Lehane said. “Whoever the next president is ought to be a legitimate president.”

Gore and Bush are in a do-or-die battle for Florida and its 25 electoral votes. Whoever wins will top the 270 electoral votes needed to move into the White House on Jan. 20. Gore returned to Washington late on Thursday from his campaign headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, and on Friday sought to project an image of calm.

Reporters and photographers were invited to the Vice-President’s residence to watch for a few minutes as Gore and his family played touch football. “Are you optimistic?” one reporter shouted in asking about the razor-close presidential race.

“I think we are going to win this game,” Gore replied, changing the subject. “We are ahead six-nothing. We are very optimistic.”

On the next play, Gore’s son, Albert III, 18, scored on a long pass. “Tied up,” the Vice-President said.

Gore arranged to go out Friday night with his son to an end-of-season high school football banquet. Young Albert was star football player this year at Washington’s elite Sidwell Friends High School.

The state of Florida is to complete its machine recount of the vote next week, when absentee ballots are also due in by Nov. 17. An official recount of 65 of Florida’s 67 counties scored 2,910,074 votes for Bush and 2,909,114 for Gore, giving the Texas governor a lead of 960 in a state of about six million votes — a little more than half the lead in Tuesday’s presidential election, the elections department said in a statement.

Critics charge the ballot’s confusing design prompted untold thousands of Gore backers to inadvertently punch a ballot for Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan. On Friday, the Gore legal team seemed to lower its rhetoric on supporting legal action in Florida involving contested ballot mainly in Palm Beach County.

Lehane, asked about possible legal action, said on Friday, “We haven’t taken anything on or off the table. But right now we are focused on the hand recount.”