Depending on how you count them, there are now at least nine separate lawsuits fueling the postelection feud in Florida. Al Gore’s legal team – seizing on the confusing Palm Beach County ballot that may have caused thousands of Gore supporters to accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan – is searching for a way to prevent the vote count from being officially certified. On Saturday the Bush camp fired off a shot of its own, filing a federal lawsuit to prevent a Gore-requested hand recount of ballots in Palm Beach and other counties. Teams of lawyers for both sides have descended on south Florida to pore over election statutes for anything that might give them a foothold in court. “We’re preparing for a full-blown legal fight,” says Ron Meyer, a Democratic election-law attorney from Tallahassee.

Just how long that battle will last is hard to say. At some point Gore – or Bush – could decide that the fight is too damaging to himself and the country and concede the race. If neither does, the lawyers could drag this thing out for weeks or even months.

The Democrats got a break last week when state circuit court Judge Kathleen Kroll issued what may have been the first court order in history freezing the results of a presidential election, barring local officials from certifying Palm Beach County’s ballots at least until a hearing this week. At first, Democratic lawyers had filed their case in federal court in West Palm Beach, where they were assigned a Reagan-appointed judge, Kenneth Ryskamp. The lawyers soon dropped the case there and refiled in state circuit court, where they drew Kroll – a liberal Democrat married to a Clinton-appointed Labor Department official. That doesn’t, of course, mean Kroll will be an automatic pushover for the Democrats. But some Republicans have complained that the Gore side is shopping for sympathetic judges.

Prescription Drugs Bush and Gore both have plans to help the estimated 13 million seniors who lack prescription-drug coverage–and the candidates offer voters a real choice of approaches. The Gore plan, costing $253 billion through 2010, adds a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare. After paying a $25 monthly premium, a senior would be reimbursed half of all drug bills up to a maximum of $5,000 in bills per year. In addition, the plan would cover all prescription payments exceeding $4,000 in out-of-pocket costs per year.

Bush’s plan, less clear on the details, has a price tag of $158 billion. He says he will work with Congress to reform Medicare. Until then, he will provide $48 billion to the states to help low-income seniors pay for their drugs. The rest of the money would cover at least 25 percent of the premiums for seniors buying health insurance, including drug coverage, from private insurers or Medicare. All prescriptions are covered after $6,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. Both plans, which are voluntary, cover pre-existing conditions and pay all costs for seniors with incomes below $11,300.

As an expansion of Medicare, Gore’s plan builds on an imperfect but generally dependable system that serves some 39 million seniors. Bush’s plan, preferred by drugmakers and insurance companies, is intended to offer seniors wider choices.

– David Noonan

Social Security Both candidates are discussing Social Security’s long-term problems, which is good. But neither will admit publicly that the only way to manage the baby boomers’ retirement is to raise Social Security taxes to the moon, increase the retirement age and scale back benefits in other ways, or to stuff trillions of dollars into the system.