Thousands of ballots from Palm Beach County Florida were packed onto a rented truck and started a seven-hour drive to the state capital early Thursday.
US media showed live pictures of the truck hitting the highway with 462,000 ballots on board that will be used as evidence in court battles over whether or not they should be recounted.
Ballots from Miami-Dade County, which have not been hand counted, will be shipped tomorrow.
In Tallahassee, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Sanders Sauls had ordered all 1.1 million ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties sent to his court under police escort, revising his earlier decision to have only contested votes delivered.
But Sauls has yet to rule on a request by the Democrats to have the ballots recounted. He scheduled a hearing on the matter for early Saturday.
Vice President Al Gore's campaign wants the disputed ballots recounted using a broad standard that allows marked, but unpunched, ballots, which the counting machines rejected as non-votes, to be counted as votes -- WEST PALM BEACH (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
