World News 12-12-2000 Supreme Court To Give Final Word who: Al Gore and George W. Bush what: Still await Supreme Court decision where: Washington DC when: Today snippet: America was held spellbound yesterday, says The Guardian, as the nine justices of The US Supreme Court in Washington DC retired to deliberate "in the decisive showdown of the presidential election dispute". "With the odds stacked against them," says Ben Macintyre in The Times, "lawyers for Al Gore argued in front of America`s nine most senior judges that the manual recounting of votes in Florida, which stopped last Saturday on the order of the Supreme Court, should be restarted." His Republican opponent George W Bush argued that the recount would be unconstitutional. "There was no immediate indication of when they would announce their verdict," writes Martin Kettle in The Guardian, "though today is the deadline for Florida to nominate its 25 members of the electoral college". The result may well be split 5-4, as it was on Saturday when the Florida Supreme Court`s order to recount was overturned. If the vote is in favour of Mr Bush, he will become president. If it favours Mr Gore, says the BBC, "that could throw the case back to Florida`s high court," which would have to rule on the validity of specific disputed ballot papers, such as the infamous "dimpled chads". [... more]

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