In a day of shocks for the two presidential candidates, the Florida Supreme Court barred the state from declaring a winner today as had been planned when the overseas votes were counted.
Earlier yesterday, a lower court had cleared the way for the Florida Secretary of State, Ms Katherine Harris, to declare the winner of Florida who would then become the president of the United States.
Florida has 25 electoral college votes and this would be enough to give either Governor George Bush or Vice President Al Gore the required majority of 270 electoral votes to become president.
Yesterday Mr Bush was ahead by 300 votes and appeared likely to also win most of the 2,600 overseas ballots. Ms Harris, who is a Republican activist and supporter of Mr Bush, had declared that she would not allow any of the hand recounts to be included.
The Bush campaign, delighted with the lower court decision, was working on a "victory" statement for today followed by a press conference by Mr Bush.
But the Gore campaign, downcast by the ruling by Judge Terry Lewis, immediately appealed to the Florida Supreme Court to rule on whether it was legal to ignore the results coming in from the hand recounts in several counties with a large Gore majority.
The supreme court unanimously decided late in the afternoon that it would hear the appeal on Monday. But it also issued an injunction to prevent Ms Harris from declaring the result today. The seven judges were all appointed by Democratic governors.
A relieved Vice President Gore came out of his official mansion in Washington to make a brief statement to the media. He welcomed the supreme court decision. "I want to be clear. Neither Governor Bush, nor the Florida Secretary of State, nor I will be the arbiter of this election. This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people as expressed under the rule of law."
A former secretary of state, Mr James Baker, who is heading the Bush team in Florida, also made a brief statement saying the court order was "designed to maintain the status quo until the hearing on Monday," and was not made "on the merits of the case".
Mr Baker said "we remain confident" that the court will find that Ms Harris "properly exercised her discretion and followed the law".
Another setback for the Bush camp was the refusal of a federal appeals court to intervene to stop the hand counts as Mr Bush had requested. The matter is being left with the Florida courts.
Meanwhile the hand recounts which Mr Gore has demanded were continuing in Palm Beach and Broward counties and slowly increasing his overall vote. When the counts are completed in these heavily Democratic counties, Mr Gore is almost certain to have wiped out Mr Bush's narrow 300vote lead.
Miami-Dade, another county with a big Democratic turnout, yesterday decided to hand recount, reversing an earlier decision. The counting of the estimated 2,600 overseas ballots also began yesterday and was showing small gains for Mr Bush.
It remains to be seen, however, if the supreme court will overrule Ms Harris's decision not to include the hand recounts in the final Florida result.
If the supreme court decides the hand recounts should be included in the final result, there will be further delays which could stretch for several weeks. In Miami-Dade with almost 700,000 votes cast, the hand recount could take up to a month, according to some officials there.
The American public will become more restive the longer the delay before the next president is officially declared. An MSNBC poll in Florida showed that 71 per cent are willing to wait until this weekend for the final result. Only 36 per cent are willing to wait for several weeks.
In a nation-wide poll for Newsweek 61 per cent said both candidates should agree to accept the results as final once the recount is officially done or the absentee ballots are counted.
Up-to-date coverage of events can be found throughout the weekend on the Breaking News section of ireland.com and our US Election website. www.ireland.com