Wayne,
It would indeed be better if there were universal standards for manual recounts. It would be better still if there were universal standards for modern voting equipment, so we wouldn't get into this mess in the first place.
But I find it funny to notice how the Republican are always big on local control (= no universal standard, no running into federal court), until local control is likely to result in more Democratic votes.
Anyone hearing the Republicans whine today would think that asking for a manual recount in a very tight vote was a diabolical trick that the Democrats had just invented. I have news for you, it's not new, and it's legal in Florida and many other places, including Texas.
Particularly when recounting the old-style punch cards, human readers will always be able to read some cards that the machine could not read, because the voter did not cleanly punch the card, or marked it with a pen, etc. No votes need to be invented or discerned by "mind-readers". These are Democratic districts, so most of the found votes will really be Democratic. The Republicans could have asked for recounts in Republican districts, though I understand that most of the Republican districts have newer voting machines, so they are unlikely to have as many unreadable ballots. |
