There is the growing possibility that all 61,700 votes cast on electronic machines in the contest will have to be recounted -- by hand, and witnessed by arguing lawyers, clerks and sheriff's deputies....
Until Thursday, all sides were thinking the dispute was just over the more than 3,000 uncounted paper ballots in the race. Now the talk is of scrutinizing every single ballot cast.
There is a process for election boards to canvass the machine votes in ways that can start out as a random audit of 3 percent of the machines. If there is a deviation in the recount of less than 2 percent from the original count, lawyers say, then the machine votes are considered to be valid. But that doesn't mean they won't be challenged by lawyers.
Democratic lawyers say they will likely press to have all the machine ballots recounted by hand, a process that, if permitted by the courts, could drag on. In the 60th District, it would mean checking 61,700 separate pieces of paper -- with each one examined, and argued over, by lawyers.
Election lawyers, who can earn $800 an hour, will then demand votes in dispute be set aside in boxes categorized by the kind of objection. A judge then would settle those disagreements, like whether a vote counts if someone circled a candidate's name instead of, as the instructions say, filling in an oval box.
I don't even know what to say, except to be extremely grateful that none of those races involves Tompkins County. I'm pretty certain that none of this will improve voter confidence or interest in our political institutions, however. A paper trail is a great thing - until you have 61,700 pieces of paper to sort out at an hourly rate of many thousands of dollars. Once again, I long for the lever machines that at least prevented this crazy possibility.
If this is really what "Democratic lawyers" are considering, maybe it's time for the party to take a deep breath and step back from this particular precipice.
