Governor George W. Bush appeared to inch nearer to becoming the next US President when official results in Florida showed him 300 votes ahead of Vice-President Al Gore.
But a state court ruling has left open the possibility that Mr Gore may overtake Mr Bush if the results of hand counts continuing in three Florida counties after yesterday's deadline are taken into account.
A decision on this will be taken by the Florida Secretary of State, Ms Katherine Harris, on the basis of statements from the three counties concerned, to be submitted by 2 p.m. today (7 p.m. Irish time).
Ms Harris, announcing the results, said that unless the "facts and circumstances" of the reasons for the continuing hand counts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties justify amending the results released last night, they will stand.
Overseas results due in by Friday midnight will also be certified as part of the final results, she said.
This leaves open the possibility that Mr Gore can win Florida and thus the presidency if Ms Harris allows hand-count changes to be added to the existing results and if the overseas results also go in his favour.
If Ms Harris, who is a dedicated Republican and was a cochair of Mr Bush's Florida election campaign, rules against allowing the results of the hand counts, there will be a huge outcry from the Gore campaign. Court challenges would certainly follow and risk delaying the final election result further.
The results as of last night in Florida are: Mr Bush 2,910,492 votes and Mr Gore 2,910,192 votes. Before the recount in all 57 counties, Mr Bush was ahead by 1,747 votes.
Mr Bush's spokeswoman, Ms Karen Hughes, said the governor would "abide by" the certified results and overseas results.
Whoever wins Florida will become the next President. The state has 25 electoral college votes and this is sufficient to give either Mr Bush or Mr Gore the 270 electoral votes required.
Both Republicans and Democrats are hoping that the overseas ballots will favour their candidate.
The court ruling that Ms Harris had the authority to insist on yesterday's deadline was a setback for Mr Gore, who has been gradually eroding Mr Bush's lead in the hand recounts in four mainly Democratic counties. Gore supporters in Palm Beach County especially had complained that the machine vote there had not accurately reflected how they had punched the ballot cards.
Mr Warren Christopher, who heads the Gore team for the Florida recounts, said "the court's opinion on this point is tantamount to the injunction we sought." A senior Gore lawyer, Mr David Boies, warned: "If the secretary of state refuses to accept amended returns based on the recount and violates what this court has ruled is her duty, which is to accept these results unless she has a good reason not to, then we may be back in court."
An added complication is that Ms Harris has told Palm Beach County that it cannot conduct the state-wide hand recount which is to begin this morning.