By Patrick RizzoTALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Lawyers for Democrat Al Gore on Monday filed legal challenges contesting Republican George W. Bush's certified victory in the presidential election in Florida, saying thousands of votes in three counties that could have changed the outcome were unfairly ignored.
Judge Sanders Sauls of the Leon County Circuit Court in the state capital Tallahassee where the complaint was filed held an hour-long hearing on procedural issues on Monday afternoon, and gave Bush attorneys four days to file their response.
The Gore campaign said in its complaint that the results certified by state election officials on Sunday night, which gave victory in the key state to Bush by 537 votes, were incorrect.
Sauls, randomly assigned to the case, gave Democrats two days to file their list of witnesses and Republicans two days after that to respond with their own list.
Democrat attorneys, anxious to move the case along rapidly, said they could produce their list of witnesses -- experts on issues such as voting machines -- on Tuesday.
The Democrats said in their complaint that ``The vote totals reported in the Election Canvassing Commission's certification of Nov. 26, 2000, are wrong. They include illegal votes and do not include legal votes that were improperly rejected.''
``The number of such votes is more than sufficient to place in doubt, indeed to change, the result of the election.''
The Democrats' court papers said thousands of votes in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau counties were not counted or improperly certified -- enough for Gore to overtake Bush.
GORE ON LEGAL OFFENSIVE
They asked the court to order the state election commission to amend Sunday's certification of Bush as the winner of the Florida election and ``to report the true and accurate results of the election.''
Specifically they wanted the commission to include the results of all ballots counted in Democrat strongholds of Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties by machine or hand through 7:30 p.m. EST (2430 GMT) on Sunday Nov. 26, and for thousands of uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade to be manually counted.
The legal offensive was Gore's only hope of securing the presidency after Florida election officials on Sunday night certified Bush as the winner in the state by a margin of just 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. Bush claimed victory hours later.
Whichever candidate won the state would take its 25 Electoral College votes, enough to gain the 270 needed nationwide to win the White House.
During the hearing, Democrats pleaded the case for their motion to have contest actions expedited, arguing the Dec 12 deadline for the state to pick its electors was fast approaching.
The Republicans countered that they had notification of the complaint a scant 90 minutes before the hearing began, and that they had not even had enough time to consult or notify some of their clients.
``I don't think anybody is prepared to see this process simply expire because we did not get the work done in time,'' Gore attorney David Boies told reporters after the hearing.
``I think both sides are making a genuine effort here to get this matter resolved.''
COMPLAINT AGAINST STATE ELECTION COMMISSION
The Democrats' complaint said the state election commission rejected a complete manual count in Palm Beach County that gave Gore an additional 215 votes because it was filed after Sunday's revised 5 p.m. deadline, and also the results of a manual count of about 20 percent of Miami-Dade precincts that netted the vice president about 160 more votes.
It also said heavily Republican Nassau County, in violation of election law, filed results from an early, election-night tally and not those from a later recount, handing 50 extra votes to Bush. They want the court to reverse that filing.
The commission also failed to count about 4,000 ballots in Palm Beach County that voters had marked with an indentation but were not punctured, the Democrats said. If ``discernible indentations'' on those ballots had been counted as votes, Gore would have received more than 800 additional net votes, the complaint said.
It also said Miami-Dade failed to count some 9,000 ballots because its election board chose not to conduct a manual recount of ballots counted earlier by machine. Gore's complaint estimated that those 9,000 ballots would have netted him about 600 more votes.
Gore sought all uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade to be manually counted under the court's direction, and for all the votes counted in Miami-Dade including the results of the court's manual recount as well any hand-counts done by the county canvassing board to be included in an amended result.
They also wanted 892 disputed votes from Palm Beach County to be manually counted by the court and included in the certified results.
MOTION TO SPEED COURT PROCESS
The Gore team made a motion to accelerate the court process, which usually takes 10 days, and for the court to appoint special masters in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties to count or oversee the counting of previously uncounted ballots, and for all disputed ballots to be placed in the safekeeping of the Tallahassee court.
Sauls gave Palm Beach two days to file an objection on sending their ballots to Tallahassee.
The judge denied the Democrats' request for them to be sent up immediately since that county was under a contrary order from a state judge there, Judge Jorge LaBarga, instructing it to keep ballots for public viewing and examination.
The plaintiffs in the filing were Gore and his vice presidential running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman against Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who served as a co-chair of Bush's Florida campaign; Bob Crawford, and Clay Roberts individually and as members of the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission.
Also named in the complaint were the Miami-Dade County canvassing board, Nassau County canvassing board and Palm Beach County canvassing board, as well as Bush and his running mate Richard Cheney.
