Two major US newspapers came out Monday in support of hand vote recounts being conducted or considered in several Florida counties, in the wake of the deadlocked US presidential election.
"People can identify legitimate votes that machines overlook," the Washington Post wrote in an editorial.
The daily called a lawsuit filed by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush in a federal court in Miami seeking to stop the hand recounts "flimsy."
"Florida can't finish counting until at least Friday, when all absentee ballots are due," the Post opined. "Until then, the state should be seeking as accurate a count as possible."
The paper said that if the Bush campaign believes there are undercounted votes in majority Republican Florida counties, manual recounts should be conducted there too.
The New York Times expressed a similar view while criticizing the Texas governor's stance on manual recounts.
"Mr. Bush's move to stop the manual vote counting in four heavily Democratic counties in Florida was wrongly conceived," the influential daily said in an editorial.
The Times said that "if counting and recounting proceed unimpeded, we can know who the next president is by the end of the week."
Both newspapers have endorsed Democrat Al Gore for president.
A hand vote recount is underway or being considered in at least five Florida counties in the wake of the unresolved presidential race between Gore and Bush.
At the moment, the Texas governor holds a precarious 288-vote lead over the vice president in the pivotal southeastern state that is likely to decide who will be the next US president -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
