ALLAHASSEE - Al Gore, racing against a deadline tomorrow to win the right to include recounted votes in the final Florida tally, won a temporary reprieve yesterday when the Florida Supreme Court said the manual re-tabulation in some counties can continue.
But the court did not decide whether these new hand counts would, in the end, be included in the certified vote. That crucial question is expected to be the focus of a ruling by another Tallahassee judge this morning.
George W. Bush, ahead by 300 votes in the official state tally, opposes the recount and wants the remaining vote limited to overseas ballots, which are due by midnight tonight. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican who has said there should be no more recounting, said she plans to ''certify'' the final election result tomorrow.
If the scenario unfolds as the Bush camp hopes, aides believe the Texas governor will win the majority of overseas ballots and thus win the state - and the presidency.
''Win or lose, this election will be over'' tomorrow, Bush campaign chairman Don Evans said. Separately, Evans announced that Bush would not pursue a recount in Iowa, where he trails Gore by a tiny margin.
Gore, meanwhile, instructed his legal team to make a full-scale assault to persuade the courts to allow the recounted votes. Speaking on a radio call-in show yesterday, Gore said ''the choice really is whether the voters are going to decide this election by having every vote count or whether that process is going to be short-circuited without all the votes being examined.''
With Gore depending so heavily on a further recount in South Florida, much attention is expected to be focused this morning on a decision from Circuit Judge Terry Lewis. He has been asked by the Gore camp to declare that Harris's refusal to accept recounted ballots was legally wrong. Earlier this week, Lewis ruled that Harris has the discretion to decide whether to extend Tuesday's recount deadline. Harris then used that discretion Wednesday night to declare that the counties had given no adequate reason to allow the extension.
Whatever Lewis decides, however, will probably be appealed by the loser to the Florida Supreme Court, which is fast becoming the ultimate focal point of the legal tangle over the election. All seven judges on the high court were appointed by Democratic governors; one also was jointly named by a Republican governor-elect.
Yesterday the court handed Gore an interim victory by allowing the recounts to proceed. Within 90 minutes, Palm Beach County began recounting its ballots, which could take more than a week. Broward County already had been counting its ballots, and Miami-Dade County will decide today whether to recount.
It was far from clear whether this new recounting will mean anything. In its ruling, the Supreme Court offered little or no guidance, ''At present this is binding legal authority on this issue, and there is no legal impediment to the recounts continuing.''
The ruling was notable for its lack of any mention of whether the recount must be accepted by Harris. Harris announced Wednesday night that she would not extend the deadline for recounted ballots beyond Tuesday.
Bush lawyer James A. Baker III dismissed the significance of the ruling. ''This decision does nothing more than preserve the status quo, and that status quo is that state officials act persuant to the law,'' he said.
But Gore lawyer David Boies, who handled the government's antitrust case against Microsoft, said at a news conference last night that he believed the Supreme Court intends for Harris to extend the deadline.
''I doubt if the Florida Supreme Court meant them to go forward only to have them ignored,'' Boies said, referring to the recounts. But he acknowledged that the Supreme Court eventually could be asked to address that question more directly.
The Gore camp spent much of yesterday criticizing Harris's late-night announcement. In making her decision, Harris said that state law allowed her to extend the deadline only in cases of voter fraud or natural disaster.
That brought a sharp attack from the Gore legal team, which said in a court filing: ''Rather than considering all relevant facts and circumstances in taking these actions, the Secretary has directed an unwavering effort to stop the manual counting of ballots.'' The Gore court filing also accused Harris of engaging in a ''charade.''
Harris's lawyers responded in Circuit Court here that the secretary was merely following the law. Lewis, the judge in the case, is expected to announce at 10 a.m. today whether Harris should be required to extend the deadline and allow the recounted votes.
The emphasis on Florida intensified as the Bush campaign abandoned efforts to seek a recount in Iowa, which Gore won by 4,047 votes.
The Bush camp fought the manual recount in Florida courts and also in federal court, filing a motion with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to stop the Florida recount. It was unclear last night when the court would hear the case, although it clearly put the matter on a fast track and could take it up today.
''Eight days after Florida's presidential vote, the entire nation is witnessing the disintegration of a process that was designed to elect America's president,'' Bush's lawyers argued. ''The Florida manual recount process is being used to eliminate any possibility of an orderly, rational, and final end to the election.''
Bush, who rejected Gore's proposal for a statewide recount late Wednesday, made no public comment yesterday and returned to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But Gore and his running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, continued their public-relations offensive.
Lieberman made the rounds of the morning television shows, accusing Harris of trying to determine the winner.
''Basically, she wants to decide the election herself without letting the votes be counted,'' Lieberman said.
If Gore wins court approval to include the latest recounts, the outcome of the race is likely to hinge on actions in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. In Palm Beach, election supervisors last night began recounting votes shortly after the Supreme Court ruling. It could take a week for the hand count of 460,000 ballots. Given that more than 10,000 ballots were not registered as votes by the county's voting machines, Palm Beach could prove decisive in deciding who becomes the 43rd president.
With a media mob crowding the county's hurricane-proof emergency operations center, Charles Burton, chairman of the canvassing board, said in announcing the Supreme Court's decision: ''They have given us that authority, so we intend on proceeding until such time as the recount is concluded. ... I want to make something clear. There is a Florida statute that provides for manual recounts. To be honest, I have never heard anyone complain about it before this election.''
He said more than 100 county employees would be on hand to begin counting votes with Republican and Democratic observers. The three elected members of the board had been delaying the manual recount until hearing from the Supreme Court.
Burton said the panel would work as quickly as possible. ''We'll probably see if we can't squeeze a little more time out of these people,'' he said. He said two shifts of county employees would work today.
A sample hand count on Saturday and Sunday from four Palm Beach County precincts netted Gore 19 additional votes, raising the possibility that Gore could gain more than 1,000 votes countwide.
In Miami-Dade, election officials may choose today to also conduct a hand count of ballots. Earlier this week, the panel rejected the request on a 2-1 vote after Gore picked up just six votes after a hand recount of 5,871 ballots in three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. But the board has set a 3 p.m. hearing today to reconsider that action and could begin a recount in light of the Supreme Court ruling.
In Broward, where recounting was going on before the Supreme Court decision, officials completed the second day of a hand count and found an additional 21 votes for Gore. With only a sixth of Broward's precincts counted, Democratic officials noted this result could be extrapolated into a 130 vote gain for Gore in Broward.
''The Supreme Court's ruling confirms what we've always believed, that we can go ahead with our count,'' said Suzanne Gunzburger, a member of the Broward canvassing board. But question remained whether all of the recounting would be included in the final state tally, and whether it would reverse Bush's slim lead.
Globe reporters David Abel, reporting from Palm Beach County, and Raja Mishra, reporting from Broward County, contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press also was included.
