The official result of the Presidential count in Florida will be announced tomorrow but is likely to be legally challenged immediately by the loser. The US Supreme Court will hold a hearing next Friday on whether the controversial hand recounts infringe federal law as claimed by Governor George Bush.
If he is declared the winner tomorrow, Vice President Al Gore will contest this result in a civil action the next day, his lawyers have announced. But there will be increasing pressure on Mr Gore to concede, even from some Democrats.
Mr Bush has already won the election night count, a machine recount, and a recount including absentee ballots. So a further victorious count for Mr Bush, three weeks after the election, could swing public opinion strongly on his side, to the view that the time has come for Mr Gore to accept defeat and spare the country further wrangling through the courts.
The winner in Florida will receive the state's 25 Electoral College votes. These will provide the majority of 270 electoral votes required for being declared the winner of the presidential election.
If Mr Bush loses tomorrow, he will pursue actions in several courts which he has already initiated. Yesterday the US Supreme Court announced that it would hear Mr Bush's appeal against the decision by the Florida Supreme Court to allow hand recounts which Mr Gore had demanded.
Mr Bush has been trying to stop the recounts which are seen to favour Mr Gore. Legal observers had predicted that the Supreme Court would not interfere in a matter of Florida law.
In a second action, Mr Bush is contesting results in 14 Florida counties where he claims that overseas ballots, many from military personnel, were wrongly disqualified. Mr Bush won the ballots that were accepted by two to one. A judge began hearing this case yesterday.
There is also an important court case due next week where supporters of Mr Gore are asking to have about 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County declared invalid because of improper Republican interference.
Mr Gore's hopes of overtaking Mr Bush through new votes picked up in the hand recounts suffered a setback on Thanksgiving Day on Thursday when the Florida Supreme Court refused his request that Miami-Dade County should continue its recount. The county's election board had abandoned the recount there following noisy Republican protests.
Mr Gore's lawyers had argued that this flouted the Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the week that the hand recounts in Miami, Palm Beach and Broward counties should go ahead with a deadline of tomorrow at 5 p.m. for certifying results. After starting the recount, the Miami officials later said that it was impossible to meet the deadline.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, Mr Gore's running mate, yesterday denounced what he called "orchestrated demonstrations" by Republican activists which, he claimed, had intimidated officials into abandoning the recount in Miami. The scrutiny of contested ballots in Palm Beach and Broward counties is continuing as the three-member election canvassing boards rule on whether a "dimpled" ballot is legitimate.
Unofficial tallies showed that Mr Bush's lead of 930 votes had been reduced to 730 yesterday as the counting of the contested ballots in Palm Beach and Broward counties continued.
Mr Dick Cheney left a Washington hospital after treatment for a mild heart attack. Mr Cheney, Mr Bush's running mate, said he would rest over the weekend and resume work next week.
Full coverage of the US election recounts will continue throughout the weekend on The Irish Times website at: www.ireland.com