Under state law, any State Senate race with a margin of less than 2,000 votes must have all ballots recounted.

And so as the Republicans continue to roll reinforcements into Florida to protest ballot recounts, the Democrats are trying to hold their union partisans back to avoid the sort of ugly street clashes that might contribute to an ominous image of disarray.

Bolstered by a Florida Supreme Court decision that allows manual ballot recounts to go on in the state, Democrats planned to press ahead with their efforts to get a hand count in Miami-Dade County.

Last month, the tribunal ordered the ballots recounted in about 9 percent of the 130,000 precincts nationwide in response to Mr. López Obrador's allegations that there were errors on half of the precinct tally sheets and evidence of fraud in some instances.

There would be no more ballots recounted.

These absentee ballots were thrown out without warning or appeal even as officials in three Florida counties prepared to undertake tedious recounts that involved minute examination of paper punch-card ballots in search of indentations or other signs of voter intent.

It is one thing for James Baker to express the Bush campaign's dismay over the ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that the manual ballot recounts should be included in the state's final tally.

But what gave Justice Thomas's comments a special piquancy and increased relevance was the 5-to-4 ruling stopping all ballot recounts in Florida.

With characteristic verve, Lapham, the editor of Harper's Magazine, dissects the contretemps that closed the last millennium, the ballot recounts that dismayed both presidential candidates and the gifts-and-pardons gala of the Clinton family's last night in the White House.

They turned out to be part of the five-justice majority that barred ballot recounts in Florida, a decision that gave the election to Mr. Bush.