With the Florida Supreme Court now the crucial factor in deciding the outcome of the stalled US Presidential election, the court's seven judges will soon rule on the arguments presented by the legal teams of Vice-President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush.
The judges, all appointed by Democrat governors, fired sharp questions at the lawyers during yesterday's two-and-a-half hour televised hearing before retiring to prepare their ruling. It could come today or tomorrow before the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend begins on Thursday.
Chief Justice Charles Wells opened the hearing saying "The court is certainly aware of the historic nature of this session and is aware that this is a matter of utmost and vital importance to our nation, our state and our world."
Judge Wells was concerned about meeting the deadline for appointing Florida's 25 representatives to the Electoral College which formally elects the next President. The Florida electors have to be appointed on 12th December but prolonged recounts could jeopardise this deadline.
At stake is whether Mr Bush will become the next President by being officially declared the winner in Florida where he is now ahead of Mr Gore by 930 votes or whether the court will rule that hand recounts going on in three heavily Democratic counties can continue, giving Mr Gore a chance to catch up.
Mr Gore hopes the hand recounts will produce enough new votes to allow him to overtake Mr Bush and thus win Florida with its 25 Electoral College votes and thereby the Presidency. The Supreme Court in Tallahassee was packed for the legal pleadings from the Gore and Bush lawyers and also from the attorney representing the Secretary of State, Ms Katherine Harris, who had been prevented by the court from declaring an official result last Saturday. A lower court had given her the go-ahead and it is this decision which is being appealed by Mr Gore.
Ms Harris, who was also the co-chairperson of the Bush campaign in Florida, has so far refused to include hand recounts from three counties in the official result because they were not completed within the deadline of seven days after the election on 7th November. She also argued that under Florida law there was no justification for hand recounts as there had already been a machine recount in all 67 counties which had made Mr Bush a narrow winner by 300 votes.
The Gore lawyers argued that Ms Harris abused her authority by refusing to include the hand recounts from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. They said that the court should instruct her to include these recounts in the final result, or "at the very least, it should instruct her not to certify the result until those manual recounts can be completed and properly reviewed."
The Bush team argued that Florida law clearly intended that any recount had to be completed within seven days of the election and that it was up to the authorities in a county seeking a hand recount to make the necessary arrangements to complete within that time. But several judges questioned how this could be done in such a short time.
A lower court judge in Palm Beach yesterday refused a request from a group of voters to have a new vote in Palm Beach because of allegedly defective ballot papers.
According to unofficial results of hand recounts of presidential ballots in three Florida counties Vice-President Gore will probably not gain enough votes to beat the official, but as yet uncertified, 930-vote lead of Republican George W. Bush in the state.
In Palm Beach County, canvassing board chief Charles Burton said with about half of the county's 531 precincts reporting, Gore had gained three votes.
With 518 out of 609 precincts reporting in Broward County, Gore had registered a net gain of 118 votes, according to television network CNN.
In Miami-Dade County, where only 11 of the 614 precincts had reported, Gore had gained 12 votes, CNN reported.