"The basic principle is that states should do their best to make sure the actual will of the people is expressed in the vote of the president," Tribe said on the New York Times web site yesterday. "That is done in a different way in different states, but one way is to recount manually when it is terribly close and there is a reason to believe the machines screw up."

But Bush's lawyers said that manual counting introduces randomness into the election.

"The process, to sum it up, is selective, standardless, subjective, unreliable and inherently biased," said GOP lawyer Theodore Olson.

Gore's camp made similar claims about the arbitrariness of Harris's decision to impose the 5 p.m. deadline for recounting Florida's vote. Christopher, who heads Gore's Florida team, accused Harris of playing favorites.

"Her plan, I am afraid, has the look of an effort to produce a particular result in the election rather than to ensure the voice of all citizens will be heard," he said.

Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz was one of thirty lawyers who appeared in federal court before Middlebrooks this morning. Dershowitz represented a group of Palm Beach voters.

At Harvard, officials of the Republican and Democratic Clubs parroted the arguments of their national counterparts.