And you're right too Jon. Much work needs to be done. There has always been folks who screwed up and I'd like to see more detail into looking at remedies to make ballot design and voting more foolproof. On the other hand, there are plenty of documented situations from precincts all over the US using the punch card machines where counts have had a problem and recounts are questionable.

Here in my own county, we had a similar problem six years ago when a close vote demanded a recount and ended up with three because none matched and there were questions about what the machine count actually was. The precincts where the discrepancies occurred all used cards, whereas the others where there was no problem used either scantron or lever machines. And this was on a Issue vote, not a candidate.

I think what gets me is that these machines have been outmoded for years and we keep writing off the problems. We need election reform in many ways, and campaign finance reforms too. Replacing these machines would have to be included in any thing to make it meaningful. You can't do a reliable recount with punch cards and the equipment used to machine count is not reliable.

Spaw