TALLAHASSEE (djc) – Immediately after Secretary of State Katherine Harris declared Texas Gov. George W. Bush the winner in the state of Florida, Texas governor named transition team and urged Democrats to reconsider legal challenges.
The certified results put Bush ahead of Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes. The official count gives Bush 2,912,790 and Gore 2,912,253.
“The true winner in the election is the rule of law,” Harris said.
The Gore campaign said it will contest the results, but in a televised statement made last Sunday just after 9:30 p.m., Bush asked the vice president to reconsider.
“Now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count,” he said.
Bush said running mate Dick Cheney will head a transition team, calling for a “new tone in Washington.”
Following Florida’s certification Gore’s running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman held a press conference calling the results innacurate and saying the Gore camp had “no choice but to contest these actions.”
Lieberman said, “The integrity of our self-government” could be cast into doubt without Democratic steps to get the most complete and accurate count possible. Gore’s lawyers were to file their challenge in the courts of Leon County, site of the state capitol at Tallahassee, Monday morning.
James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state speaking for Bush who was making his own statement later Sunday night said that count already has been delivered, repeatedly.
He said Bush “won this election” under the rules set by law before Election Day, Nov. 7 and under rules changed after the election. Baker denounced Gore’s lawyers for what he called an extraordinary resort to the courts although Bush has his own set of lawsuits, including the appeal the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears oral arguments on Friday.
“At some point there must be closure,” Baker said. “At some point the law must prevail and the lawyers must go home.
“We have reached that point,” he said. ”… It is time to honor the will of the people.”
For all that, Baker said Bush will “absolutely” go ahead with his case in the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the state supreme court ruling that led to the extended certification deadline and hand recounts of ballots cast by machine in four disputed Democratic-leaning counties.
“We have no assurance that the other side will stop,” he said.
Anticipating the certification, Gore was preparing a speech to be delivered on Monday, explaining his case for the continuing challenge.
Gore, who got 337,183 more votes than Bush nationwide on Nov. 7, said he has an obligation to the people who supported him and Lieberman, more than for any Democratic ticket before them. In an interview with The New York Times, he said “every vote that is legally cast must be fairly and accurately counted in accordance with the law …
“If at the end of this process …. if Governor Bush is successful, I will spare no effort to help him unify the country behind his leadership,” Gore said, “and I would expect him to do the same if I am successful.”
Sen. Trent Lott, the Republican leader, called on Gore “to end his campaign and concede this election with the honor and dignity the American people expect.”
Lieberman protested that hundreds of votes were being discarded by the secretary of state. “How can we teach our children that every vote counts if we are not willing to make a good-faith effort to count every vote?” he asked, speaking from a lectern flanked by two American flags, at a hotel across from the White House that is at stake in the struggle.
David Boies, lead lawyer for Democrat Gore’s campaign, said the certification would be challenged Monday on at least three grounds, probably more, all involving incomplete recounting or votes he said had been tallied for the vice president at some point and later discounted.
“If either candidate were to be declared the victor and electoral votes awarded based on the status today, neither candidate would be legitimate,” Sen. Bob Graham said. “What is putting the presidency in jeopardy is the prospect of illegitimacy.”
Sen.-elect Bill Nelson said American’s don’t want “an election that they feel like has been rigged or has not fully been counted.
In Broward County, where Gore made more substantial recount gains, the canvassers were less restrictive in judging a voter’s intent on punchcard ballots that did not register in voting machines because they were not properly punched, only dented.
Democratic congressional leaders said nothing would be settled Sunday or soon. “We’re now in a two-week-or-so period in which you have a contest on both sides of this election,” said Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader.
