ABCNEWS.com News Break

— -- White House Race Becomes Paper Chase

Plus: the Missing Votamatic and Football Fans Sack the Press

While Al Gore and George W. Bush Debated over the airwaves about how to conclude the Florida election, the Gore campaign made plans to challenge today a decision by Florida’s secretary of state to reject hand counts from three counties. In a televised appearance Wednesday night, Gore offered to forego any further legal challenges if hand recounts in three counties were accepted. He also said he would support a statewide hand recount if the Bush camp requested it. Gore suggested that he and Bush should hold a meeting immediately, “not to negotiate, but to improve the tone of our dialogue in America,” followed by a second meeting after the election “to reaffirm our national unity.”Hours later, Bush made his own televised appearance and rejected the offer. “The way to conclude this election in a fair and accurate and final way is for the state of Florida to count the remaining overseas ballots, add them to the certified vote, and announce the results as required by Florida law,” he said.Stay with ABCNEWS.com for the latest developments in the battle for the White House.

Will the Florida overseas ballots favor Bush or Gore? Which is better at counting votes — man or machine? And what if the election drama isn't resolved in the Florida courts? Get full election coverage here.

Several days after presidential votes were tallied in what has become the hotbed of Florida’s post-election confusion, police in Palm Beach County confiscated a ballot-box mechanism from the car of a well-known local Democrat. The mechanism, called a “Votamatic,” did not contain any ballots. It’s a device used on some types of ballot boxes to punch votes through ballot cards, which are then tallied by computers. According to a police report filed at the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office and obtained by ABCNEWS, Irving Slosberg, 53, pulled the mechanism from his car and handed it over to police on Nov. 11 after denying to a county government employee that he had it.

No recount is needed in this Florida crisis: The 5,000 hotel rooms in Tallahassee can’t accommodate both thousands of rabid football fans and hundreds of journalists who will be staying in the state capital this weekend. And in this case, football appears to be trumping politics.

Consumer confidence held strong and steady this week, unfazed by the uncertain outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Ratings of the national economy and personal finances held near their record highs, with views of the buying climate a tad lower but unchanged. That’s consistent with an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll that found only 19 percent “very worried” about the election.

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