Recount suspended in Florida

FROM THE ARCHIVE

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NOVEMBER 14, 2000

A manual recount of ballots in Palm Beach County in Florida has been suspended this morning.

A recount had begun earlier as officials from both parties awaited a key decision. But officials in the county have suspended the count, due to a question on its legality under state law.

A judge today will decide if a 5PM deadline on ballot counts will be extended. Florida state law says counts must be complete one week after election day and the Florida Secretary of State has said if any counties don't have their votes in, they will be not certified.

But Democratic party officials wonder why the count has to be rushed. Absentee ballots, for instance, don't have to be counted until Friday. The number of those ballots is small, however, in comparison to the tens of thousands being hand counted.

Republican party officials had attempted to stop manual recounts altogether. But a federal judge turned them down.

Elsewhere, an apparent mistake in New Mexico might give the state back to Al Gore. He had been considered the winner there, but after some 67,000 ballots were somehow ignored in the state's most populous county, George W. Bush came out on top by a very slim margin.