Sunday November 26 10:27 PM ET
Gore, Refuses to Quit, Will Address Nation Monday
Reuters Photo
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites), refusing to call it quits, plans to address the nation at noon EDT Monday to make his case for ``a full and fair accounting of the vote'' in Florida that he believes would make him the 43rd president of the United States, a senior aide said.
Less than 24 hours after Florida officials declared Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) as the winner of the presidential race in their state, Gore will speak from Washington as his lawyers challenge election returns in at least three Florida counties.
``It is important for the integrity of our democracy to make sure that every vote is counted,'' Gore said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday night that was published on the newspaper's Web site.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news - web sites) of Connecticut, Gore's vice presidential running mate, called Florida's certification ''incomplete and inaccurate.''
Addressing reporters at a Washington hotel, Lieberman said, ''We have an opportunity here, and we have a responsibility to ensure that this election ... respects every voter and every vote.''
Democratic attorneys contend more than 10,000 votes in Florida were never counted despite two statewide machine recounts and one hand recount in selected counties.
Out of nearly 6 million votes counted in Florida, Bush was declared the winner by 537 votes on Sunday night.
Gore aides contend the Gore-Lieberman ticket would easily make up the difference if the uncounted votes, a large number of them in Democratic strongholds, were tallied.
Gore, in his interview with the Times, said it was an essential democratic principle ``that the will of the American people is not only expressed but heard and abided by.''
He said no Democrat had told him he should drop his efforts, and some prominent Republicans, whom he would not name, had encouraged him to fight on, the Times said.
Gore's national address on Monday, along with his interview with the Times, is part of his effort to have public support in his uphill battle to win the White House.
In one of the closet U.S. presidential elections ever, Gore beat Bush in the national popular vote and, not counting Florida, leads in the Electoral College (news - web sites).
Yet who ever wins Florida will have the needed 270 electoral votes to claim the White House.
Gore, in interview with the Times, said, ``it was a close election and the American people had laid before them two different views of how we should proceed in this new century, and by the margin of 300,000 in the popular vote, and by a margin in the currently counted electoral vote, they seem to me to have chosen the approach that Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) and I represent.''
``Whether the Electoral College, which is of course the one that counts, ends up this way remains to be seen.'' he said.
Gore's attorneys said they will challenge election results in at least three Florida counties -- Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau.
They said they intend to file on Monday in Leon County Circuit Court in the state capital of Tallahassee.
In Miami-Dade County, Gore attorneys said they would seek inclusion of 388 votes counted in a partial manual recount that netted Gore 156 votes.
They said they would also seek inclusion of more than 10,000 Miami-Dade ballots that machines could not read and that were never counted. The county's canvassing board halted its hand recount on Wednesday, saying it was impossible to finish by the Sunday deadline.
Gore's attorneys said they would contest the election results in Nassau County, alleging the county's canvassing board met on Nov. 24 and decided to certify the unofficial election night returns instead of the returns from the legally mandated machine recount. That resulted in a net loss of 51 votes for Gore.
In Palm Beach County, they said they may base their challenge on the canvassing board's refusal to count hundreds of ``dimpled ballots,'' ones that were punched but not all the way through.
Gore's legal team said they would also argue Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (news - external web site) erred on Sunday when she refused to grant Palm Beach County more time to finish its hand recount.
A number of Gore backers, including Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, appeared on television talk shows on Sunday.
Daschle, appearing on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' said there was no pressure from within the Democratic Party for Gore to give up.
``Not at all,'' Daschle said. ``I've talked with most of my colleagues over the last several days and there isn't any interest in conceding anything at this point.''
``We're in this for whatever length of time it takes to ensure that we get the job done right,'' Daschle said.
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