Why this is a religious war after all. Actual hand counts of ballots in some Democratic precincts are already underway in some Palm Beach County precincts, and Gore picked up 600 votes. Now both a manual count requested by the Democrats and another mechanical count, requested by Republicans, are going on concurrently, but it was unclear how those two recounts would be reconciled if they turned up different results. That's what prompted our request for a machine retab. This idea that a hand recount is more accurate is on the face of it absurd.
Machines eliminate the possibility of human error and any other kind of potential mischief.
We've expressed strong concerns about a manual recount. We find it very troublesome. No one could say what would happen if the manual recount and the machine retab continue to yield very different results. There are several, and they can yield different results. During the first statewide recount, ballot numbers in a number of counties increased for both candidates.