From the outside it looks like the DNC is pushing seperate avenues to challenge the Palm Beach vote: recounting and legal challenges. First they do the recount, then the legal challenges, and they've seemed to be kept seperate.

However, now that the first Palm Beach recount is complete, both parties want another recount to verify. The Republicans have petitioned for an electronic recount, while the Democrats are asking for a recount by hand. As I understand it, a by-hand recount wouldn't be a comprehensive tally, but a representative recount of randomly selected precincts, to verify statistically that there's no pervasive error in the electronic tally.

This most likely serves two purposes. One, as referenced in this eyewitness account of the Palm Beach recount is to see how pervasive the 'partial punch' problem is. Apparently those who voted by absentee ballot used less efficient tools for punching the cards, such that the inner part wasn't completely punched out. These cards are read by the electronic counter as not punched out. Each time they pass through the machine, they're more likely to have that bit pulled off, and will be accurately tallied on subsequent passes. Apparently, this is the primary cause for the increase in Gore votes in the Palm Beach recount. A manual recount could see how pervasive this problem is, and count these votes appropriately.

I speculate that the second reason the Democrats want a manual recount is to build a profile of the discarded 'doublepunched' ballots. by performing a manual recount, they can determine the nature of the discarded ballots, specifically, what portion of these doublepunches were punched Gore and either Buchanan or McReynolds, the two candidates immediately above and below on the punch-card. This would provide essential evidence for the upcoming legal challenges, allowing them to make the case that people misvoted and corrected, due to an unclear ballot, and that this error favored Bush, because there wasn't an upper hole to confuse on his portion of the ballot.

An unrelated bit that bears mentioning is the ordering of the ballot. The case has been made that the order that the candidates were presented was in keeping with Florida law (that the parties are listed inthe order of voting results from the previous election) because the ballot was designed to be read column by column, top to bottom. What's interesting to note is that the numbers on the ballot next to the arrows have a 3 for Bush, a 4 for Buchanan, and a 5 for Gore, clearly indicating an improper listing order.

That's all for now. Until next time, here's a comprehensive analysis of visual interpretations of the Palm Beach ballot (site temporarily overloaded), incorporating my own organizational schemas with those of other HCI scholars.