Vice-President Al Gore's lawyers face an uphill battle in their efforts to overturn the outcome of the Florida presidential election in the next front of the legal war they are about to launch.
In the abstract, the Florida law governing election challenges looks good for Mr Gore. The statute gives judges broad power both to overturn an election and to order corrective measures such as a re-vote.
However, practical realities - particularly a lack of time to complete complicated litigation and any remedial action - is working against the Vice-President, and the difficulties increase daily, legal observers say.
"The hard thing is getting everything done" by December 12th, the date that Florida must certify its presidential electors under federal law, said Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan. "The logistics are very onerous, and the clock is running."
Mr Gore's lawyers plan to ask a Florida judge today to appoint a special master to oversee any recount or other remedy - an attempt to speed up the process.
Florida judges have overturned a number of elections, but all of them involved local races. The key standard is whether the ballots in dispute could affect the outcome of the election.
"I am very optimistic," said Gore campaign attorney Mr Ron Klain. "It is a basic principle of Florida law that an election certificate is invalid if the candidate said to be the winner actually got fewer votes. We think we can prove that Al Gore got more votes than Texas Governor George W. Bush and should be declared the winner in Florida."
But University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a Gore supporter, said an example of the hurdles facing the Vice-President was apparent on Thanksgiving Day when the Florida Supreme Court rejected the Gore team's request to order the Miami-Dade election canvassing board to resume the recount it halted the previous day.
Mr Gore had picked up 157 votes when the board halted the hand count and certified its previous results based on a machine recount. So, Mr Gore got none of those additional votes.
Mr Gore's lawyers will again challenge the board's action today.
Columbia University law professor Samuel Issacharoff said he doubted that Florida courts would require a recount: "The Florida Supreme Court has not wanted to get involved in the mechanics of counting the votes. They have not ordered the counties to do anything."
Mr Gore's lawyers are expected to point to a provision in state law that says counties "shall manually recount all ballots" if officials find "an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election".
Some legal experts said Mr Gore's lawyers must clear at least two hurdles to obtain any further recount in Miami-Dade. "They have to argue the recount is mandatory, not discretionary, and there's nothing in the Florida Supreme Court opinion to say that," Prof Chemerinsky said.
Florida law gives the county election boards the power to count, and if necessary, recount votes. Even if Mr Gore's attorneys convince a judge that a recount is required under the law, they must also persuade the courts to extend the deadlines for tallying the votes.