December 3, 2000

''The case is submitted,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said at the end of the argument on Friday, a phrase that means the preliminaries are over and the work of producing a decision is about to begin. Now what?

George Washington defeats St John's, 85-75, in college basketball; photo (M)

Gretchen Morgenson Market Watch column deplores blindness of securities analysts, such as the ones that missed signs of slowing sales at Gateway, which caused stock to fall $3 billion in one day; graph (M)

News analysis of delicate decision facing US Supreme Court on Florida Supreme Court's ruling that extended date for certifying state's vote in presidential election; says that at times of great national need, high court has in past worked hard to speak with one voice, and will again initially try for unanimity; says if this fails, court will need above all to avoid appearance of taking sides, and may even decide to step back from making any decision at all rather than issue split decision; photo (M)

The trial that may finally determine the outcome of the presidential election opened today with a bitter and minutely detailed argument over the mechanics of punch-card voting, as lawyers for Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush sparred over such matters as whether voting machines were properly cleaned between elections. Lawyers for Mr. Gore, who filed the lawsuit to contest Mr. Bush's certified victory in Florida, pleaded with Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court to begin a manual count of thousands of ballots that they believe contain enough votes to make Mr. Gore the winner. And because they want any such counting to include slightly indented ballots, they spent hours presenting testimony on how easy it is to partly punch a hole. The testimony forced the judge to add a second day to the trial, beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday.