Governor George Bush's hold on the Presidency tightened yesterday when a Florida court rejected Vice-President Al Gore's request for hand recounts, which he was depending on to overturn Mr Bush's official lead.
Mr Gore received another legal setback when the US Supreme Court annulled a decision by the Florida Supreme Court, which had allowed hand recounts, which are now ended, but had yielded extra votes for the Vice-President.
Following these legal developments, Mr Bush leads in Florida by 930 votes and the chances of Mr Gore being able to overtake him have diminished.
But Mr Gore has not given up hope and has appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which consists of seven judges appointed by a Democratic governor. This will probably be Mr Gore's last hope of wresting Florida from Mr Bush. Political pressure is now sure to increase on Mr Gore to consider conceding the election to Mr Bush. Senior Gore advisers telephoned Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill to explain the latest legal developments and to urge them not to break ranks yet.
The advisers are privately admitting that Mr Gore is running out of time. Whoever wins the election in Florida wins the state's 25 Electoral College votes and this will give the 270vote majority of electoral votes required to be elected President by the college on December 18th.
Gore advisers said that the Vice-President will wait for the result of his appeal to the Florida Supreme Court and for the outcome of a case being heard in Seminole and Martin counties about throwing out absentee ballots before deciding on whether to concede.
Mr David Boies, the high-powered lawyer who successfully challenged Microsoft and has been leading the Gore legal team, said after yesterday's ruling by Judge Sanders Sauls that: "They won. We lost.
"This is going to be resolved by the Florida Supreme Court. I think whoever wins at the Florida Supreme Court, we'll accept that," Mr Boies said last night.
Earlier, Mr Bush had welcomed the US Supreme Court decision on his appeal against the Florida Supreme Court ruling that had allowed hand recounts beyond the official deadline. The court, which is the highest in the land, had set aside the Florida court ruling thus giving Mr Bush back several hundred valuable votes Mr Gore had picked up in the handcounts.
However the court in Washington invited the Florida Supreme Court to clarify its judgment on the handcounts and re-submit it if it so wished.
This opened the possibility that the handcounts may yet be allowed to stand but this may now become academic as a result of the sweeping rebuff to Mr Gore by the Florida Circuit Court yesterday.
Judge Sanders Sauls ruled comprehensively against Mr Gore who had asked that new recounts be held in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, where he believed hundreds if not thousands of votes for him had not been counted.
Mr Gore claimed that the counting machines in these two largely Democratic counties had missed up to 12,000 votes because voters had not punched their ballots all the way.
Judge Sauls in his judgment after 23 hours of hearings at the weekend said that the Gore lawyers had to show "reasonable probability" that vote counting errors had cost Mr Gore the election.
"There is no credible statistical evidence and no other competent substantial evidence to establish by a preponderance a reasonable probability that the results of the statewide election in the state of Florida would be different from the result which has been certified by the state elections canvassing commission," the judge said.
"The court further finds and concludes the evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes," the judge ruled.
It now remains to be seen if the seven judges of the Florida Supreme Court will overturn this ruling and allow Mr Gore new hand recounts in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach.
The court will accept legal briefs from both sides up to 3 p.m. today local time and could give a ruling by the end of the week.
But even if it accepts Mr Gore's appeal, there will be little time for carrying out recounts before the deadline of December 12th for the selection of Florida's representatives to the Electoral College.
Attention will now turn to the court actions in Seminole and Martin counties where Democratic activists are seeking to have thousands of absentee ballots thrown out, alleging that Republican officials acted illegally by completing application forms.
As these are Republican majority counties, the disqualification of all absentee ballots would greatly favour Mr Gore and could give him the lead in Florida yet.
But any such decision would of course be appealed to a higher court and by then time could have run out for Mr Gore.