U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Fla. Ruling, Bush Now in Driver's Seat

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a manual recount of Florida votes shouldn't go forward, essentially ending the race for the White House between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.

And Bush will very likely be the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The ruling reversed a decision by the Florida Supreme Court mandating a recount of the so-called undercount votes, or those ballots on which no candidate for president registered during the machine counts. The U.S. Supreme Court decision, which sends the case back to the Florida high court, tilted the contest in favor of the Texas governor. The Florida Supreme Court voted 4-3 last Friday to mandate a recount of several thousand disputed votes in the state.

The ruling by the highest court in the country came by a 5-4 tally, the same vote by which the court ordered a halt to the counting on Saturday. The winner of Florida, with 25 electoral votes, will be the next U.S. president. After the Florida Supreme Court's decision on Friday, Bush's lead over Gore narrowed to 154 votes. The proposed recount, the U.S. Supreme Court found, couldn't be done fairly and in time for tomorrow's deadline.

In a ruling released tonight, seven members of the U.S. Supreme Court said they found constitutional problems with the Florida Supreme Court's decision. The Florida high court had reversed a trial court ruling and said the recount would begin immediately. The recount was to use a standard set by the state legislature, which relied on determining "a clear indication of the intent of the voter" for selecting the candidate who received the vote. The U.S. Supreme Court then halted the order the next day.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted in the majority. Siding with Gore were Justices David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens.