Florida's Broward county has rejected a full manual recount of votes cast in last week's US presidential election after a sampling count showed a mere four-vote difference for one of the candidates, local officials said.
One of four Florida counties where the Democrats requested a manual vote recount, Broward county, just north of Miami, voted overwhelmingly -- 356,518 to 177,279 -- for Democratic Vice President Al Gore over Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush in the November 7 election.
A three-member canvassing board voted two-to-one late Tuesday to reject the request for a manual recount after a sampling of almost 4,000 voters --two-thirds of one percent -- showed a four-vote difference in favor of Gore.
Bush's tally of votes remained unchanged after the sampling count, officials said.
The board blamed the difference on voter error rather than a machine glitch and deemed there was insufficient evidence of significant vote-count errors to warrant a recount.
The news came as a blow to Democrats, who are contesting a Tuesday deadline set by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris for all recounting of votes to be completed.
Three other Florida counties are also handling vote-recount requests: West Palm Beach plans to start the recount Tuesday, Miami-Dade was to decide whether to start its recount, and Volusia county have asked for an extension of Harris' deadline to complete theirs -- TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
