World News 23-11-2000 Bush vs Gore who: George W Bush what: Asks Supreme Court to settle recount dispute where: Florida, USA when: Yesterday snippet: The race for the White House seems likely to finally and inevitably end in the US Supreme Court after the Republican Party announced yesterday that it would fight the Florida state Supreme Court`s decision to permit disputed ballots to be counted by hand. "This is a case of the utmost national importance, involving the constitution`s most fundamental rights as exercised in the nation`s most important election," Mr Bush`s lawyers have stated. "The outcome of the election for the presidency of the United States may hang in the balance." The Republican Party contends that the process of counting votes manually is more prone to error than machine-counting. The Democrats say the opposite, an argument at least partially borne out by the seven members of the Florida Supreme Court earlier this week. The announcement came shortly after Mr Bush`s running-mate Dick Cheney underwent an emergency operation in Washington, reports Mary Dejevsky in The Independent. "He was said to be recovering well in hospital after angioplasty to clear an artery. But his doctors later revealed that, contrary to a statement by Mr Bush, he had indeed suffered a slight heart attack". Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade county, officials decided to scrap their recount because there was no way the 700,000 ballot papers would be counted before the Sunday night deadline set by the court. "The decision was a blow to Mr Gore," says The Sun today. And not surprisingly "his aides vowed to challenge it." [... more]

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