The Democratic vice president beat Texas Gov. George W. Bush by 366 votes out of nearly 615,000 cast in the general election. The tally became official last week. Republicans planned to assess the results of their inspections of impounded ballots to determine if there were any treasure troves of uncounted votes that would make it worth asking for a recount. Candidates but not political parties may request recounts.
Candidates can ask for recounts of selected precincts, rather than a statewide recount.
A machine programming error in Roosevelt County, discovered last week, left more than 500 votes for president uncounted. Those votes were added to the statewide totals before the election results were certified by the state Canvassing Board. That prompted Republicans to examine ballots in other counties that used similar optical scanning machines to tally votes from paper ballots.