I agree, Skeets, than recounting all punchcards by hand would be the only fair solution at this point. However, that is not all the state, as at least Polk County uses scanned ballots (and perhaps others -- I haven't the slightest idea).
I haven't seen anything about the 26k tossed ballots you mentioned being tossed in a republican district except in the form of rumors, and I just checked a variety of news sources. Lost in the noise of re-reporting by now perhaps ... Is there a URL from a reliable source that's been posted here regarding those 26000?
I wonder if that number represents the number of Presidential votes excluded from a district (due to errors), or the total number of tossed votes from ballots (due to errors)? If it was never explicitly stated, then I'd assume it was total of every measure, which produces a more frightening number but which can actually be typical for every election from that district. In Palm Beach County alone, 23000 ballots were tossed in just the Presidential (19000+) and Senatorial (3000+) election combined (0 or 2 or more holes punched), not including tossed votes from all the other races.
At this point, I'm beginning to feel there should be a coin flip -- it would demonstrate to all Americans and the rest of the world that our system of voting in a close race is no more accurate than pure chance. Even using better ballots has it's pitfalls as Polk County discovered Sunday.
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