---------------------- Forwarded by Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT on 11/17/2000 
05:01 PM ---------------------------


Robert Johnston
11/17/2000 04:43 PM
To: Mike McConnell/HOU/ECT@ECT, Gary Hickerson/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jeffrey A 
Shankman/HOU/ECT@ECT, Joe Gold/LON/ECT@ECT, Mark Schroeder/LON/ECT@ECT, Vince 
J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: William Stuart/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jeff Kinneman/HOU/ECT@ECT, Michelle D 
Cisneros/HOU/ECT@ECT, Pushkar Shahi/HOU/ECT@ECT, Paul Pizzolato/HOU/ECT@ECT, 
John Greene/LON/ECT@ECT, Ellen Su/Corp/Enron@Enron, Steve 
Jacobellis/NA/Enron@Enron, Eric Scott/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kristin Walsh/HOU/ECT@ECT, 
Trena McFarland/NA/Enron@Enron, Scott Tholan/Corp/Enron@Enron, Kristin 
Walsh/HOU/ECT@ECT, John A Cote/HOU/ECT@ECT, Cynthia 
Sandherr/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Chris Long/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Jeffrey 
Keeler/Corp/Enron@ENRON, James D Steffes/NA/Enron@Enron, Shane 
Dallmann/LON/ECT@ECT, Aaron Armstrong/LON/ECT@ECT, Jurgen Hess/LON/ECT@ECT, 
Martina Angelova/LON/ECT@ECT, J Christopher Champion/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jim 
Roth/EU/Enron@Enron, Richard Shapiro/NA/Enron@Enron 
Subject: URGENT- Election Update 11/17b

Everything the Gore campaign was hoping to hear from Judge Lewis this morning 
they heard from the
Florida Supreme Court this afternoon. Voting 7-0 on its own motion, this very 
activist court of all Democrats
ordered Secretary of State Harris not to certify the vote "until further 
order of the court." This is a massive
victory for Gore (and more than even the Gore forces expected) and completely 
reverses the devastating
body blow dealt by Lewis this morning. A hearing is scheduled for Monday at 2 
pm on the issue of the
manual recounts.

What this means is the counting will go forward on a 24-hour basis in Palm 
Beach and Broward counties.
 This also saps the Bush campaign of much of the positive PR momentum they 
had built up as we
head into the weekend.

The justices set a hearing time Monday to begin hearing arguments for a final 
ruling in the matter, but this
quick ruling on appeal is extremely favorable to Gore and should allow the 
counties time to get real votes
tallied and leaked out to the public. Republican observers in the counties 
have been doing their job and
objecting so strenuously to every possible problem that they have prevented 
Palm Beach from finishing even
one precinct over the past two days. That has kept any numbers from leaking 
to the public as of this writing.
But now the Democrats have until at least Monday to get some numbers out in 
public.

The slow pace of the recount augurs poorly for a final resolution of the 
election.  Dade County, Florida's most populous has just
announced that they will recount over 1 million ballots--which they say could 
take up to a month.

We note that the NASDAQ is off 12 percent since election.  Prolonged 
uncertainty is only bad news for the markets, as the world waits 
for a sense of direction about US leadership on a range of issues from high 
oil prices to the Mid-East peace process to 
economic uncertainties in Argentina and in major currency markets.