Setting the finish line

For a fleeting moment Friday, it appeared as though the race for the presidency might end at yesterday’s hearing before the Florida Supreme Court. Then came the weekend, an avalanche of briefs, motions and new accusations from both sides, and the distinct possibility tat the finish line won’t stop moving until it gets to the United States Supreme Court.

The entire affair clearly has turned from being about elections to being about litigation. The two sides are no longer referred to as the Bush and Gore campaigns but as the Bush and Gore legal teams. Amid the hundreds of pages of briefs filed by both teams over the weekend are enough federal constitutional issues to allow either team to take this to the highest court in the land if it wishes to.

The issue before the highest court in Florida is fairly straightforward, despite the efforts of both teams to make it as complicated as possible. Florida has a state law setting a deadline for counties to submit election results and a state law permitting the hand recount of machine ballots to determine the intent of voters. The two laws are in conflict and the conflict must be resolved in a way that best ensures public confidence in the electoral process.

Accuracy and timeliness are not conflicting interests here, but allies. Every additional handling a ballot undergoes to decipher the hidden meaning of its chad raises new concerns about manipulation; every automatic objection to manual recounts increases the possibility that what is for now a problem resulting from mechanical failure could, in fact, become a constitutional crisis. The next important date in the election of the next president is Dec. 12, when each state chooses its members of the Electoral College. The task before the Florida Supreme Court is to establish that date as the final deadline for certifying the state’s election results as it preserves the integrity of each individual ballot.

Whether that task can be accomplishes depends greatly upon George W. Bush and Al Gore. Not upon their campaigns or their legal teams, but upon the men themselves. If the two agree to accept whatever ruling the Florida court produces, the nation not only will have a president-elect, it will have two candidates who fought hard and who ended the fight honorably.

Such an agreement can best be reached in a face-to-face meeting. Mr. Gore proposed such a meeting shortly after Election Day, when it first became apparent that the nation in general and Florida in particular did not have voting practices able to accommodate a close election. It was understandable, given the high emotions at the time, for Gov. Bush to reject the meeting. The high emotions have subsided and it is time for the two to act decisively and in concert. If not, the result will be endless rancor between the parties and, for the nation, four years of stalemate, division and suspicion.

Even when the prize is the highest office in the land, that price is too high. If the closeness of the election suggests that Americans had before them two candidates equally fit for the office, it is time for the candidates to prove it. Gov. Bush and Mr. Gore ran the race; now it is time for them, together, to set the finish line.