Reply #33: The original concern was determining if Kerry had won Ohio.

[kiwi_expat]

"In a not-so-close election such as Ohio 2004, where a main concern was whether the count had been somehow hacked, I think it is reasonable to conduct a recount that uses the same criteria as in the original machine count." -OTOH

I was one of the thousands of people who funded the recount with small donations. I clung to the hope that Kerry might actually win the election on the recount. And even though the recount occurred after the Ohio vote was certified, it was not too late to influence the Electoral College decision. (A very long shot, of course.)

The hope was that the under/over votes ("spoiled votes"), when inspected for voter intent in the 3% manual recount, would force a full manual recount in virtually all of the counties. And that once the under/over votes and the provisionals were counted, Kerry would be within 20,000 votes of a victory. That an extra 20,000 Kerry net votes might be found in a full manual recount seemed quite plausible. Greg Palast obviously thought so.

However, by the time the recount actually occurred, there had been so many rejected provisionals that a Kerry win on a recount seemed unlikely unless serious tabulator fraud had occurred. However, given the lack of random precinct selection for the 3% recount, a full manual recount might have been necessary to detect such fraud.