TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush declared himself the winner of the presidential election Sunday night after Florida officials certified that the Republican candidate captured the state by 537 votes. But Vice President Al Gore and his Democratic supporters vowed to contest the Florida results in court.
"Tonight, after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary [Dick] Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election," Bush said from the governor's office in Austin, Texas, flanked by two American flags. "We will therefore undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America's next president and vice president."
In his nationally televised address, Bush called on Gore to drop those expected court challenges. "This has been a hard-fought election, a healthy contest for American democracy. But now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count," Bush said.
As a boisterous crowd of both Bush and Gore supporters waved banners and shouted taunts in the courtyard of the state Capitol, Harris announced totals of 2,912,790 votes for Bush and 2,912,253 votes for Gore.
"I hereby declare Gov. George W. Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes for president of the United States," she said.
Unofficial tallies of the recount in several contested Florida counties showed Gore still trailing Bush by the 5 p.m. local time Sunday deadline, though the margin narrowed over the last two days. Harris said she complied with a Florida Supreme Court ruling to extend the state's certification deadline past Nov. 14. But she refused to accept partial hand recounts from Palm Beach County, where unofficial tallies showed Gore gaining another 180 votes. Instead, Harris chose to accept the county's earlier, contested machine count.
In Broward County, where officials completed their manual recount Saturday night, Gore gained 567 votes. Republicans complained that officials there had included questionable absentee ballots.
Even before Harris' certification, lawyers for Gore said they planned to file suits Monday in Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, challenging the results from Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau Counties.
"Until these votes have been counted, this election cannot be over," Gore's lead lawyer, David Boies, said Sunday in Tallahassee. "There are votes -- thousands of votes -- that have never yet been counted once."
By focusing on those three counties, the Gore campaign believes it can make up the 537-vote margin by having a judge review the ballots and the methods used to count them. Unlike a recount, in a contest, a formal Florida procedure, a judge or a person appointed by the court can examine disputed ballots themselves and rule on their validity.
In Miami-Dade County, Gore is challenging the canvassing board's decision to stop the hand recounts after Republicans mounted a noisy demonstration that Democrats said illegally intimidated the board into halting its effort.
The vice president also will contest the election returns from Nassau County, which ignored its own vote recount over the weekend and certified the original results. Gore lost 51 votes in the move.
Democratic leaders tried to blunt the momentum Bush gained from the certification announcement. "If either candidate were to be declared the victor and electoral votes were awarded based on the status today, neither candidate would be legitimate," said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.).
Graham dismissed concerns that the lingering presidential race in Florida would weaken or jeopardize the effectiveness of the next president.
"We are now going through a frustrating period, a period of inconvenience and anxiety," Graham said. "But that is nothing compared to what this country would go through if we had illegitimate president or a president who had to live with a title of illegitimacy for his full term in office.
"That is the real threat to the presidency of the United States."
Bush claims victory after recount
Published: Wednesday, November 29, 2000
Updated: Friday, December 26, 2008
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