A court's order for a manual recount of votes in Florida's hotly disputed presidential election is “the fair thing to do,” Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton said Friday.

        GOP leaders saw it differently.

        “I am in shock,” U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said in a statement Friday.

        In a 4-3 ruling, the Florida Supreme Court ordered recounts to begin immediately in an unknown number of counties where no earlier manual recounts have been undertaken.

        It also said the Florida vote should include 215 additional votes for Vice President Al Gore, resulting from a full manual recount in Palm Beach County, along with an additional 168 votes for Mr. Gore that were produced by a partial manual recount in Miami-Dade County before its canvassing board halted the count.

        That decision trimmed Mr. Bush's 537-vote lead in the state to 154 votes.

        The action by the Florida Supreme Court was a godsend to Mr. Gore. It effectively was his last chance to keep Republican George W. Bush out of the White House.

        Mr. Patton has been a spokesman for Democratic governors, and his reaction was predictable.

        “It is appropriate to count every vote possible. That is the fair thing to do,” Mr. Patton said in a statement.

        “The court has applied the Florida Legislature's own standard for counting votes where the "clear intent of the voter' can be determined,” Mr. Patton said.

        But Mr. Bunning, noting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Florida Supreme Court decision extending the deadline for a recount, accused state justices of disregarding the law.

        “Now the Florida Supreme Court has once again ordered more hand recounts without proving how it came to its previous decision in the first place,” Mr. Bunning said.

        “The liberal, activist judges on the Florida Supreme Court are thumbing their noses at the rule of law and simply making up new rules out of thin air,” Mr. Bunning said.

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