US polls -- Palm Beach votes to be recounted

US polls -- Palm Beach votes to be recounted
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Washington, Nov 12: In what may further slow down the US Presidential election outcome, crucial Florida's Palm Beach county officials today decided to undertake a manual recount of over four lakh votes after a sample recount gave Democrat Al Gore a slight edge over Republican George W Bush by 19 votes.

Interestingly, a federal court in Florida will hear tomorrow a Republican lawsuit seeking to halt a manual recount of ballots machine counted twice before in four counties of the state whose 25 electoral votes will decide the next US President -- Gore or Bush.

The decision on recount of all the votes of Palm Beach county was taken after a handcount of one per cent of 4.31 lakh votes in selected precincts of the county gave Gore an edge of 19 votes over Bush.

Election officials considered this discrepancy enough to doubt the result for Palm Beach county.

With Gore holding 262 electoral votes and Bush 246, Florida's 25 votes hold the key to either of the candidates attaining the magic figure of 270 of the 538 electoral college votes needed to become President.

County election officials will meet again tomorrow to discuss further action. It was not clear when the laborious examination of ballots in all 531 precincts of Palm Beach would begin.

Democratic Party officials, applauding the Palm Beach decision, said "a full, complete and accurate count of votes is the best way to ensure the will of the people is upheld."

They said in the light of this the Bush campaign would reconsider its efforts to prevent hand recounts.

In his petition before the Florida federal court, Bush, who holds a narrow lead after an unofficial Florida recount with an unknown number of overseas ballots yet to be counted, has said the election results show him to be the clear winner in the state.

"We are all in limbo," Bush said in an apparent reference to Democratic efforts seeking a manual recount.