Legal battle to halt Florida recount

Don't lose those ballot bags! - recount preparations underway

The Republican Party has gone to court to try to halt a manual recount of votes in the state of Florida - the result of which will decide whether Republican George W Bush or Democrat Al Gore becomes the next president of the United States.

Official figures

Bush: 2,910,074

Gore: 2,909,114

Bush lead - 960

The Gore campaign has called on Mr Bush to withdraw his lawsuit, with the vice-president's observer at the Florida vote-count, Warren Chrisopher, saying that if Mr Bush was truly confident of victory, then he should have no objection to the hand-count.

Mr Bush leads the vice-president by 960 votes out of nearly 6 million votes cast, according to official figures, with returns from two counties still to be completed.

Also on Saturday a policeman told black voters that a locked ballot box had been found at the Sheraton Hotel in Miaimi - it is not known if it contains any ballot papers.

The potential for mischief would exist to a far greater degree than in the automated count

Bush aide James Baker

A second ballot box was later revealed to have been discovered in a church. Its priest, the Reverend Clive Judson, said about 1,400 African Americans had voted in the church.

Mr Bush's senior aide James Baker said on Saturday that the Republican's court case was regrettable but necessary, as a manual count would be less reliable than the machine counts used so far.

"There would be countless opportunities for the ballots to be subject to a whole host of risks," Mr Baker told journalists in the Florida capital Tallahassee.

He said Mr Bush's campaign was asking the court to "preserve the integrity and consistency and the equality and the finality of the most important civic action that Americans take - their votes in an election for president of the United States."

Saturday's recount affects three of the state's 67 counties. All the votes in Volusia County are to be recounted by hand and there will be new tallies in selected precincts in Palm Beach County and Broward County.

The mechanical voting machines used in Tuesday's election punch out a hole in the voting card. However, sometimes the punch did not come out cleanly, and the vote was not registered.

The Democrats believe that rechecking the votes by hand could help them.

They are also hoping that thousands of postal votes still to be counted from local people living abroad will boost their support.

A Bush supporter urges Gore to accept defeat

Democrats have still not said whether they plan to go ahead with court action over allegations of voter confusion and intimidation, particularly in the contentious Palm Beach County.

With 25 Electoral College votes, Florida is the one state that really matters of those where there are still doubts over the results.

An unofficial count conducted by the Associated Press indicates that Mr Bush's lead over Mr Gore is even tighter than the official figures, at just 327 votes.

Election 'not over

The court case is likely to further anger Democrats who on Friday accused Mr Bush of prematurely proclaiming himself President after he said he was already planning his administration.

"Contrary to claims being made... by the Bush campaign, this election is not over," Mr Gore's campaign manager, William Daley, said.

Questions also remain over results from the state capital, Tallahassee, where there are reports of black voters being turned away from a polling station.

As the uncertainty in Florida continues, unofficial tallies from other state recounts reportedly confirm victory for Al Gore in Oregon, but reverse the New Mexico result - handing it to Mr Bush.

But neither state provides enough electoral college votes to push either candidate past the winning post: that remains in the hands of Florida.